This paper examines the export-led growth hypothesis for the five largest economies of the South Asian region using a multivariate time-series framework. The South Asian countries present an interesting case study in view of their increasing outward orientation and adoption of export promotion policies as part of their growth strategies. A key feature of the study is the explicit incorporation of imports in the analysis to make allowance for their role in the export-economic growth relationship. While controlling for imports, the results indicate bi-directional causality between exports and output growth in Bangladesh, India, and Sri Lanka in the short-run. The study finds long-run equilibrium relationships among exports, imports, and output for Bangladesh and Pakistan. However, for India, Nepal, and Sri Lanka, no evidence of a long-run relationship among the relevant variables is found. These results are in contrast to some earlier work that found the export-led growth hypothesis to be a long-run phenomenon for all countries in the region.

Trade and growth theories generally predict a positive relationship between openness to international trade and economic growth. There are a number of channels through which openness is thought to influence economic growth. First, a liberal trade regime enhances efficiency through greater competition and improved resource allocation. Second, greater access to world markets allows economies to overcome size limitations and benefit from economies of scale. Third, imports of capital and intermediate goods can contribute to the growth process by enlarging the productive capacity of the economy. Fourth, trade can lead to productivity gains through international diffusion and adoption of new technologies. Empirical studies on the relationship between openness and economic growth have largely supported the view that openness has a favourable impact on economic growth. It is not surprising, then, that the proposition that more open economies tend to grow faster has gained wide acceptance in academic as well as policy circles. The objective of this paper is to examine the relationship between openness and economic growth in the context of Pakistan’s economy. Section 2 reviews the literature on openness and economic growth. Section 3 provides an overview of trade liberalisation in Pakistan. Data and methodology are described in Section 4, while Section 5 presents the empirical results. Section 6 concludes the discussion.

Interest spread of Pakistan’s banking industry has been on the rise for the last two years. The increase in interest spread discourages savings and investments, on the one hand, and raises concerns about the effectiveness of the bank-lending channels of monetary policy, on the other. This study examines the determinants of interest spread in Pakistan using panel data of 29 banks. The results show that the share of interest-insensitive deposits in total bank deposits is a key determinant of interest spread, whereas industry concentration has no significant impact on interest spread. Furthermore, the ongoing merger wave in the banking industry will limit the options for the savers, with adverse implications for the interest spread. We argue that to maintain a reasonably competitive environment, merger proposals may be subjected to review by an anti-trust authority.

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This paper examines the efficiency of the large-scale manufacturing sector of Pakistan using parametric as well as non-parametric frontier techniques. Production frontiers are estimated for two periods─1995-96 and 2000-01─for 101 industries at the 5-digit PSIC. The results show that there has been some improvement in the efficiency of the large-scale manufacturing sector, though the magnitude of improvement remains small. The results are mixed at the disaggregated level: whereas a majority of industrial groups have gained in terms of technical efficiency, some industries have shown deterioration in their efficiency levels. The results from both the approaches are consistent, and in line with similar studies.