The article examines the macroeconomic and structural implications of the Israel-US induced war on Iran, resulting in the closure of Strait of Hormuz, which significantly influences global energy markets and Pakistan’s economy. With the Strait facilitating about one-fifth of global oil supply, disruptions cause price spikes affecting countries like Pakistan that heavily rely on oil and gas. Pakistan’s energy sector suffers from high import dependence and limited refining capacity. Domestic consumption is driven by economic stagnation more than by renewable adoption, though solar energy use is on the rise, integration into the grid remains low. The article discusses Pakistan’s insufficient strategic petroleum reserves, exacerbating risks during supply interruptions. High energy import costs lead to fiscal deficits and strain foreign exchange reserves, worsening economic instability. Rising fuel prices increase costs in transport and production, threatening balance-of-payments stability. The article recommends shifting to investment- and export-led growth, enhancing energy efficiency and diversification, modernizing the national grid for renewables, upgrading refinery capabilities, maintaining strategic reserves, and implementing fiscal reforms for better pricing and subsidy management to tackle Pakistan’s energy challenges.

PREFACE Coal contributes significantly to global energy supplies. In 2021, coal was the second-largest energy source consumed globally (Chart 1). Over the years, coal demand has increased substantially from 2.6 billion tons in 1980 to 5.5 billion tons in 2021 (Chart 2). Because of environmental concerns and the increasing trend towards renewables, its share declined in the United States and many European countries, decreasing global consumption in 2014 and onwards. But the trend reversed in 2020. It is because of the Russia-Ukraine war leading to the worldwide energy crisis that the demand for coal has increased. According to the International Energy Agency (IEA) forecast, coal demand is expected to exceed the previous coal demand record of 2014 in the next few years. The United States and many European countries are shifting back to coal as it is still one of the cheapest energy sources. The primary coal-consuming sector is electricity generation. High natural gas prices have increased reliance on coal for generating power. Coal consumption in electricity generation is expected to grow by more than 2%. If the gas prices continue to increase in 2023 or onwards, dependence on coal will remain, and demand will surge further. Besides gas prices, coal prospects will depend on the transition speed towards renewable energy sources. PAKISTAN COAL POTENTIAL Pakistan has 186 billion tons of coal reserves, primarily located in the province of Sindh (Chart 4). Only Thar desert (10,000 sq. km) contains the world’s 7th largest coal reserves of about 175 billion tons (Chart 5), equivalent to 50 billion tons of oil equivalent (more than Saudi Arabia and Iran’s oil reserves) and 2000 trillion cubic feet of gas (68 times more than Pakistan’s total gas reserves). Thar Block-II alone contains 2 billion tons of lignite reserves, of which 1.57 billion tons are exploitable. This Thar Block-II can produce 5,000MW of electricity for 50 years, while the total Thar reserves can sustain 100,000MW for over two centuries . Most of the coal in Pakistan is lignite (with more moisture content, up to 50%).

Currently, there are more than 20 institutions, not including distribution and generation companies, involved directly in the power sector. There are several institutions with overlapping functions (Figure 1). At least three organisations National Electric Power Regulatory Authority (NEPRA), Central Power Purchasing Agency (CPPA) and Pakistan Electric Power Company (PEPCO), are responsible for monitoring and regulating the management and operations of distribution companies.Similarly, Private Power Infrastructure Board (PPIB), Alternative Energy Development Board (AEDB) and NEPRA, apart from seven provincial departments, have powers directly and indirectly to facilitate and guarantee the technical compliance of private generation companies. Board of Investment (BOI), though not involved directly in the power sector, performs similar functions.Despite this bulk of the administrative burden, power sector challenges in the form of inefficiencies, institutional disconnections in the management and the priority of issues are increasing.

In a perfectly competitive market, electricity is priced at the Marginal Cost (MC); MC pricing guarantees economic efficiency (Gunatilake, et al. 2008). In other words, efficient electricity tariffs consider all power supply costs. To a great degree, it also accounts for capital investments for future expansion and up-gradation (Kojima, et al. 2014). In a free market, market forces of demand and supply pushed for MC recovery. In contrast, for a regulated market, the regulator sets the tariff according to the costs and reasonable return determined through the regulatory process. The regulator followed pre-determined guidelines, parameters, and standards set by the government; it may or may not be MC pricing. When a regulated tariff is set at a low level, it distorts the development/ functioning of the market at both the wholesale and retail levels. “If regulated end-user prices are not in line with wholesale market conditions, suppliers without significant low-cost generation capacity or equivalent long-term contracts will not be able to make competitive offers that will allow them to recover their costs. Consequently, with a limited number of suppliers, there will be no development of the wholesale markets. Liquidity will remain at a low level. As a result, neither the wholesale nor retail markets will be competitive” (Cited from Suzzoni, 2009, p. 5).

The volume is based on the proceedings of a workshop, organised on the issue of child labour and the right to education. The studies in the volume reflect on topics related to the problems of universalising education in South Asia. All the studies are based on the experience of either Bangladesh or India, with the exception of one or two studies where a comparison with other South Asian countries is considered. The problem of child labour is quite widespread in South Asia and that has prevented children in these societies from participating in schooling. At the same time, there are children who are neither at school nor at work. The reason identified for this is not only poverty but also the school system, as well as discrimination on the basis of caste, gender, tribal, or religious reasons. The volume generally examines the patterns of social discrimination and how this problem has been aggravated by the formal educational system. It also reflects on policy interventions addressing the problem—the efforts by the government, on the one hand, and by the non-governmental organisations, on the other.

The paper is a review of possible consequences and challenges presented by high oil prices in Pakistan. Pakistan is heavily dependent on imported fuels and this dependence is expected to increase even further in future given the depleting gas resources. The rising oil prices in the international market has had effected negatively balance of payment position as well as on the budgetary position of the country and contributed in creating inflationary pressures in the economy. For long run development oil will remain an important source of energy. The government should chalk out strategies for ensuring efficiency in use; and development, adequacy and reliability of supply. Unless appropriate steps are taken this trend of rising oil prices will further aggravate the negative impacts on the economy.

In the past few decades, South Asia has experienced a number of intra-state (caste, class, communal, ethnic or nationality-based) conflicts. Civil society has lost its existence as a consequence of the panic created by the security forces and armed groups (two major parties involved in the conflict). The worst victim in these riots are women, who have been affected both directly and indirectly. However, in these instances, women, instead of moving only in their private sphere with their traditional role as a victim (on humanitarian grounds), have surfaced with a new responsibility in the public sphere, which used to be the preserve of the male. There was no choice left for them except to take up arms to protect themselves and their families.

The primary concern in this book is to enquire into the political economy of the marketing of dryland agricultural products, and the volume presents an analysis and discussion of the fieldwork carried out in Coimbatore district in Tamil Nadu, India, assessing the relevance of theory in the real world. The approach followed is a combination of institutional economics and political economy. The difference between the “new political economy” and the “old political economy” is explained, and the latter has been selected as relevant for the current project. “Old political economy”, basically concerned with power, challenges conventional research on the economics of agricultural markets. It is defined as an interdisciplinary agenda, exerting power for determining economic structure and behaviour. The author states that marketing in agricultural products is not a simple transaction between the producer and the consumer. Rather, it is explained better by the diversity and complexity of the marketing structure, institutions, and behaviour of the marketing system , looked at in a political-economy framework.

Changing needs and aspirations of society is the fundamental element of the development process. The state’s failure to cope with this galvanises people to make collective decisions. In development projects, participation is very important to decision-making, as it involves the sharing of information, knowledge, commitment, and the right attitude. Participation, like sustainable development, has become one of those catchwords whose message is advocated by everyone, but with their own definition. In development, it is broadly understood as the active involvement of people in making decisions about the implementation of processes, programmes, and projects which affect them. It involves the equitable distribution of political and economic powers between different groups in a society, leading often to a decrease in the advantages of the élites. However, the term covers a wide variety of activities.

The culturally, politically, and economically diversified regions in Asia are also different in terms of nutrition level. When under-nutrition is overcome by overnutrition, it leads to the incidence of diet-related diseases such as coronary heart disease, cancer, diabetes, hypertension, and stroke, etc. Some parts in Asia are undernourished and some are over-nourished, while a large number of countries are facing both these problems simultaneously. There are also instances of both under- and over-nourished people within the same household. This is what the authors call the double burden of malnutrition in Asia. This book deals with the magnitude, causes, consequences, and solutions to the problem of malnutrition. It is an excellent, comprehensive, and authoritative overview of the issues related to the direct and indirect policy interventions; capacity development, and resource allocation; and it is useful for the future course of action aimed at defeating the menace of malnutrition in the very diverse continent of Asia.

The electricity sector in Pakistan has suffered huge losses (cumulated loss of Rs 5 trillion about 12 percent of current GDP). The nomenclature of “circular debt” has confused policy-makers to think that it is a mere accounting problem and not a result of deep structural issues that need to be carefully unravelled. Besides creating budgetary issues it has badly affected the overall sustainability of the electricity supply chain for many years. The study finds that not only governance issues, operational and commercial inefficiencies in the system; it is the lack of effective planning and flawed policies on the generation side, and distortions in our pricing strategy accompanied with irrational subsidies on the demand side, that are contributing to this financial liability.

The study is an attempt to estimate demand for petrol and diesel in the road transport of Pakistan for the period 1971-72 to 2016-17. Using these demand estimates, it forecasts demand for these two products up to 2024-25 under different scenarios of economic growth and petroleum product pricing. On average the study finds a growth of about 12.5 percent in the demand for petrol (motor spirit) and about 9.6 percent in the demand for diesel in the road transport of Pakistan. Findings suggest careful planning to ensure sufficient supplies to meet future demand for petroleum products.

Oil prices have fluctuated enormously in recent years. Strong volatility in oil prices has serious implications for Pakistan's economy given its substantial dependence on imported fuels. Energy prices have a crucial role behind inflation rates in Pakistan and it is proved in this study. We estimate the effects of oil price changes on inflation for Pakistan using an augmented Phillips curve framework. Our results suggest a strong oil price-inflation relationship, especially when oil prices are rising continuously over the past one year. Keywords: Oil Prices, Inflation, Pakistan. JEL Classifications: E31, Q43

The study has identified certain factors behind high energy intensity in Pakistan. Poor institutional quality, industrialization and urbanization are found to be responsible for high energy intensity while income per capita and energy prices playing a significant role in reducing energy intensity. For Pakistan being a developing country, both urbanization and industrialization are expected to rise in future along with its adverse impact on energy intensity. But economic policies that increase income will reduce energy intensity, provided income effect is large enough and sustainable to counterbalance the impact of urbanization and industrialization. Similarly, rationalization of energy prices along with good governance practices and better quality of institutions can play an effective role in increasing the efficiency in the use of energy thus reducing overall energy intensity.

This paper has examined linear as well as non-linear impact of fiscal policy variables on private investment in Pakistan. The results imply that it's better to examine different aspects of fiscal policy instead of fiscal policy variables in aggregate form as the impact of fiscal policy variables in aggregate and disaggregate form do not comply with each other. Different categories of expenditures and revenues have different impact on private investment. Secondly, in most of the cases there exists a non-linear relationship, which implies the significance of certain threshold level for the different fiscal policy instruments to encourage private investment.Keywords: Fiscal Policy,Private Investment, Non-Linear RelationshipJEL classification: E22, E62(ProQuest: ... denotes formula omitted.)1. INTRODUCTIONThe importance of private investment for growth and development in the developing countries is a well-established fact. Private investment is regarded as an essential element in promoting a broad-based and sustained growth that in turn would help in reducing poverty. Equally important is the response of private investment to changes in economic policies (including fiscal policy) of the government.The economic difficulties faced by many developing countries in the early 1980s (widening current account and balance of payment deficits, rising inflation rates, growing foreign debt burdens, and falling growth rates) forced policy makers to shift development strategies against large-scale government intervention and more towards market for allocating and utilising the resources; along with the increased role of the private sector. Empirical research also has confirmed a much larger role of the private investment in the growth process as compared to the public investment (Reinhart and Khan, 1989).Since the 1980s the general trend seen in most of the developing countries is the decline in public investment as a result of tightening aggregate demand and increasing role of the private sector in capital formation. Furthermore, it is observed that public resources are earmarked for social sectors, that is, for the alleviation of poverty and for the upgrading of social capital and services (Chibber and Dailami, 1991).On the other hand, there exists strong evidence in the favour of fiscal policy and economic growth relationship in the empirical literature. While in this relationship, private investment is regarded as one of the main channels through which fiscal policy can influence economic growth (Hermes and Lensink, 2001). In endogenous growth models changes in the capital stock can affect the long-run per capita growth rate, either through more investment in quantitative terms or through more efficient investment. Therefore, in these models a positive role of economic policies (fiscal policy included) is assumed in the process of economic growth provided these policies aimed at improving the quantity and/ or the efficiency of capital stock. In these models, it is established that some fiscal policy instruments are good and some are bad for growth.The role of private sector in the Pakistan's economy, undoubtedly, is quite significant; not only as a major producer of goods and services, but also as a major contributor in investment, and the largest employer. Its importance can be gauged from the fact that according to one estimate its contribution to total GDP is around 84%. When undocumented informal economy (private sector) is taken into account its contribution to GDP exceeds even further (ADB, 2008). To elaborate it further, in Pakistan's total investment of 15.2% of GDP in 2008-09 the share of private sector investment is around 88%.Pakistan has seen an asymmetrical real GDP growth rate pattern throughout its history, ranging from around 10% in 1969-70 to just 1% in 2008-09. When average for different decades is estimated, it indicate that the private sector-friendly 1960s recorded the highest GDP growth rate of around 7% followed by 5%, 6%, 4%, and 5% in the 1970s, 1980s, 1990s and in the 2000s respectively. …

Oil price shocks have raised serious concerns among the policy makers around the world because of its adverse impacts for the net oil-importing economies. This article, based on the data from 1979–80 Q1 to 2007–08 Q2, analyzes the impact of rising oil prices along with the changing macro conditions on output. Oil prices and output are found to be strongly related, and to a great extent this relationship is non-linear. In addition, lower debt-GDP ratio, lower deficit spending, lower real effective exchange rate, and the existence of foreign exchange reserves and capital investment would cause output to rise. In Pakistan, besides making adjustments at the macro level, what is required is to make rational choices about the development of energy mix for the future to reduce the risk of oil price fluctuations in the global energy market.

Rapid rises in the prices of crude oil in the decade of 2000s have raised concerns among policy-makers around the world, as the theoretical and empirical literature has established that oil price shocks may have an adverse impact on the macro economy of the country. In particular, for the oil importing developing countries like Pakistan, this upward trend in the price of oil can have serious repercussions in terms of creating inflationary pressures in the economy, increasing budget deficit and balance of payment problems, and thus affecting the GDP growth. Pakistan was on the path of rising GDP growth in the first seven years of this decade. But in the year 2007-08, the situation has changed. This oil price shock could possibly be one of the reasons. As an impact of rising growth rate of GDP, demand for energy has also gone up rapidly in this period. In the energy mix for the year 2005-06, oil accounts for 32 percent of the total energy used in Pakistan, and it is the second largest source of energy used after natural gas, which accounts for 39 percent. With oil being the second largest source of energy used along with almost constant rate of its production Pakistan is heavily dependent on oil imports from Middle East exporters (Saudi Arab playing the lead role). Almost 82 percent of the demand for petroleum products in the country is met through imports.1 Pakistan spent about 44 percent of export earnings on oil imports in 2006-07. This percentage was only 27 percent in 2004-05. Therefore, the international oil price increase has a direct impact on the macro economy of the country, especially on the oil price GDP relationship. The share of net oil imports in GDP is an indicator of the relative importance of the oil price rise to the economy in terms of the potential adjustments needed to offset it. For Pakistan over the last few years, this ratio has risen from 3.13 in 1990-91 to -5.24 in 2005-06 [Malik (2007)]. With such a high ratio, unless country is running in surplus, or has extremely large foreign exchange reserves, high oil price is dealt by severe macro economic adjustments.

This paper analyses various governance attributes with reference to NEPRA (National Electric Power Regulatory Authority), a regulatory authority formed in 1997 to protect consumer interests in the provision of electricity, and to ensure an efficient and competitive environment for the electricity generators and distributors. The aim is to find out the reasons behind the poor performance of the electricity sector in Pakistan. Weak administrative governance in NEPRA is prevalent in the form of lack of autonomy, resulting in the overall institutional inability to carry out the desired functions effectively. In addition, NEPRA is lacking in professional expertise to supervise and control the power sector, and establish a rational and equitable pricing regime.

This paper is an attempt to study the regulatory environment in the electricity sector of Pakistan. NEPRA, a regulatory authority was formed in 1997 to protect consumer interests in the area of electricity provision, and to ensure an efficient and competitive environment for the electricity generators and distributors, but it has so far not been able to achieve anything. The power sector (dominated by WAPDA and KESC) is still affected by institutional and organisational weaknesses, with inefficient and non-optimal tariffs, high line losses, and high level of corruption. It has been found weak administrative governance in NEPRA in the form of lack of autonomy, resulting in the overall institutional inability to carry out the desired functions effectively. In addition, NEPRA is lacked in professional expertise to supervise and control the power sector and establish a rational and equitable pricing regime.