This study investigates the relationship between infrastructure investment and economic growth at the aggregate and sectoral levels, namely, the industrial, agriculture, and services sectors for Pakistan over the period from 1972 to 2015. In contrast to earlier literature, we make a comparative analysis of the different composition of infrastructure investments, including public versus private investment and infrastructure investment in sub-sectors such as in power, roads, and telecommunication sectors. The long-run relationship is estimated using fully modified ordinary least squares (FMOLS) to address the problem of reverse causality. The main conclusion of this study is that both public and private infrastructure investments have positive but different effects on economic growth. In other words, the marginal productivities of private and public infrastructure investments differ across the different sectors of the economy. In most of the cases, public infrastructure investment has a larger impact on economic growth than private infrastructure investment. Two important policy implications emerge from this study, as follows: (1) The different elasticity estimates can be used by policy makers to quantify the impact of policies targeted at the specific sector and (2) the government should develop an enabled policy environment to attract private investment, with the consideration of structural characteristics of the various sectors. The involvement of the private sector in the provision of infrastructure would help to control the tight budgetary situation.

The prime objective of economic policies is to increase the welfare of the general public and the monetary policy supports this broad objective by focusing its efforts to promote price stability. The growing importance of monetary policy stabilisation efforts may reflect both political and economic realities. Understanding the transmission mechanism of monetary policy to inflation and other real economic variables is imperative for central bankers to conduct monetary policy effectively. High inflation reduces growth by reducing investment and productivity growth which reduces the welfare, gives a theoretical foundation for the choice of price stability as an objective of monetary policy. These arguments about monetary policy objectives lead to the choice of price stability as the single or primary objective of monetary policy. Monetary policy is one of the important tools with the monetary authorities to achieve the objectives of price stability. There is extensive theoretical as well as empirical literature available on the effects of monetary policy shocks on the real economic aggregates and prices.

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The King Abdullah Petroleum Studies and Research Center (KAPSARC) is a non-profit global institution dedicated to independent research into energy economics, policy, technology and the environment across all types of energy. KAPSARC's mandate is to advance the understanding of energy challenges and opportunities facing the world today and tomorrow, through unbiased, independent, and high-caliber research for the benefit of society. KAPSARC is located in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.