Conference on Pakistan’s economic challenges begins

LAHORE: The Lahore School of Economics opened its two-day 15th annual conference on management of the Pakistan economy themed “Economic Challenges in a Changing National and Global Environment” on its main Burki Campus Thursday.

Assistant Professor at Lahore School of Economics Shaheen Naseer said the conference included six sessions aimed to investigate key challenges Pakistan’s economy was facing especially on fiscal fronts. More precisely the regular sessions include 21 papers.

The conference opened with welcome remarks by Rector Dr Shahid Amjad Chaudhry. He extended a warm welcome to the audience which included eminent scholars, policy-makers, academicians, students and other dignitaries.

Professor of Economics and Director, Graduate Institute of Development Studies, Lahore School of Economics Dr Rashid Amjad began the session with his presentation on “Breaking out of Pakistan’s stop-go economic cycles: Does the fiscal deficit hold the key 1999-2019?” The paper investigated Pakistan’s economic performance during 1999-2018 to identify the main growth trends and factors responsible for the overall poor growth performance in the period and to analyse the role of the fiscal deficit as the primary factor in explaining this poor economic performance.

The second paper was presented by Dr Moazam Mahmood (Professor of Economics at the Lahore School of Economics) and Shamyla Chaudhry (Assistant Professor in Economics and Business Administration at Lahore School of Economics) entitled “The BOP crisis in Pakistan: Stabilisation versus Growth”. This paper observed that there are large capital outflows in the country. It provided an analysis which combines exchange rate management together with rate of interest as viable policy tools. Dr Azam Chaudhry (Professor and Dean of Economics Department at Lahore School of Economics) co-authored with Gul Andaman presented his paper entitled “Balance of Payments constrained growth in Pakistan”.

The last presentation of the first session entitled “A General Equilibrium Macroeconomic model for the Pakistan Economy” was presented by Moazam Mahmood (Professor Lahore School of Economics)and Azam Chaudhry (Professor at Lahore School of Economics), co-authored with Aimal Tanveer (Research Associate at Lahore School of Economics). In this presentation, they shared a GE Macro model for Pakistan’s Economy, formulated by Lahore School of Economics research lab, as both a didactic teaching tool for students and a policy tool for advice to the GOP.

The second session was chaired by Dr Rashid Amjad entitled “Provincial Accounts and Decentralisation”. Hafiz A Pasha (Professor Emeritus at the Beaconhouse National University) presented his work on “Resource mobilisation by provincial governments”.

The second session was concluded by the paper entitled “Using Nighttime Light Data to Estimate Sub-national GDP and Growth in Pakistan” written by Theresa Chaudhry (Professor Lahore School of Economics and co-authored with Mahnoor Asif (Teaching Fellow at the Lahore School of Economics). The third session chaired by Dr Rashid Amjad focused on “Public Finance in Pakistan”. The session started with the paper entitled “External Debt Management (2019-2024)” presented by Syed Kalim Hyder (Senior Economist at Monetary Policy Department of the State Bank of Pakistan) co-authored with Mehak Ejaz (Assistant Professor SZABIST, Karachi, Pakistan). Dr Muhammad Ashfaq Ahmed (Director General (International Taxes), Federal Board of Revenue, Islamabad) and Dr Inayat U Mangla (Professor of Finance at the Lahore School of Economics) presented their work entitled “Pakistan: The Fiscal Crisis Management 2019-24: The Revenue Perspective”.

Jamshed Y Uppal (Associate Professor of Finance at the Busch School of Business and Economics, Catholic University of America, Washington DC) co-authored with Mahmood Khalid (Senior Research Economist at Fiscal and Monetary Section, Pakistan Institute of Development Economics (PIDE), presented on “Pakistan’s Recurring Fiscal Crisis – Institutional Strategies for Fiscal Consolidation”. The paper concluded that instilling fiscal discipline would remain intractable unless approached in its entirety in a comprehensive strategy. The last paper entitled “Challenges in Monetary Policy Management Planning for the Future” was presented by Ahmad Masood Khalid (Professor of Economics and Dean of School of Business and Economics University Brunei Darussalam) co-authored with Obiyathulla Ismath Bacha ( International centre for education in Islamic affiance (INCEIF), Malaysia).