Economic Development- A view from the Provinces

Abstract

Analysis of economic development in Pakistan has traditionally followed a "top-down" approach. This approach—that it is the federation as a whole rather than the federating units that matter— is so ingrained that even after 60 years of Pakistan's existence the authorities do not produce official statistics of provincial GDPs, investment, and savings. The importance of examining the differential growth of provinces can hardly be exaggerated—a main reason for the breakup of Pakistan in 1971 was the issue of income disparity between West and East Pakistan. A dearth of existing literature on regional issues on the one hand, coupled with stark differences across provinces on the other, motivates this study. The development of provinces has to be studied, and measures to accelerate the growth of lagging regions identified. This paper has tried to provide a framework for thinking about the development of Pakistan's provinces. More specifically the objective of this study is to employ a ‘bottom-up’ approach to analyzing development in Pakistan, to formulate a development strategy and to suggest sectoral and other relevant policies for the provinces. This paper is intended to highlight some of the main issues and to bring together some key data and discussion that might otherwise be difficult to access.