IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/pra/mprapa/45077.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Trade, Poverty and Employment: Empirical Evidence from Pakistan

Author

Listed:
  • Majeed, M Tariq

Abstract

This study investigates the development effects of trade liberalization in Pakistan over the period 1970-2006. The empirical analysis builds on four indicators of economic development that are per capita GDP, inequality, poverty and employment. Since these indicators have simultaneity problem, the model has been estimated with General Method of Moments (GMM) econometrics technique. The results show that the effect of trade liberalization on per capita GDP is insignificant though sign is positive while its effect on employment is negative. Although trade theory predicts that trade openness is the potential source of economic growth that in turn spills over its positive effects on labor market but this study reveals jobless-openness phenomenon in Pakistan. It is also found that trade liberalization has increased income inequalities because it creates winners and losers simultaneously and the net welfare impact is negative. As far as eradication of poverty is concerned, it has been found that trade accentuates, not ameliorates, and that it intensifies, not diminishes, poverty in case of Pakistan. The role of human capital emerged as a most favorable factor in enhancing PGDP and eradication of poverty. The central message of this study is that trade liberalization is not pro development in case of Pakistan and investment in human capital is the effective tool for development and fight against poverty.

Suggested Citation

  • Majeed, M Tariq, 2011. "Trade, Poverty and Employment: Empirical Evidence from Pakistan," MPRA Paper 45077, University Library of Munich, Germany.
  • Handle: RePEc:pra:mprapa:45077
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/45077/2/MPRA_paper_45077.pdf
    File Function: original version
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Anne O. Krueger, 1983. "Trade and Employment in Developing Countries, Volume 3: Synthesis and Conclusions," NBER Books, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc, number krue83-1, March.
    2. L. ALAN WINTERS & NEIL McCULLOCH & ANDREW McKAY, 2015. "Trade Liberalization and Poverty: The Evidence So Far," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: Non-Tariff Barriers, Regionalism and Poverty Essays in Applied International Trade Analysis, chapter 14, pages 271-314, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    3. Salman Syed Ali & Sayyid Tahir, 1999. "Dynamics of Growth, Poverty, and Inequality in Pakistan," The Pakistan Development Review, Pakistan Institute of Development Economics, vol. 38(4), pages 837-858.
    4. Haroon Jamal, 2006. "Does Inequality Matter for Poverty Reduction? Evidence from Pakistan’s Poverty Trends," The Pakistan Development Review, Pakistan Institute of Development Economics, vol. 45(3), pages 439-459.
    5. Irwin, Douglas A. & Tervio, Marko, 2002. "Does trade raise income?: Evidence from the twentieth century," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 58(1), pages 1-18, October.
    6. MacDonald, Ronald & Majeed, Muhammad Tariq, 2010. "Distributional and Poverty Consequences of Globalization: A Dynamic Comparative Analysis for Developing Countries," SIRE Discussion Papers 2010-62, Scottish Institute for Research in Economics (SIRE).
    7. Muhammad Tariq Majeed & Eatzaz Ahmad, 2009. "An Analysis of Host Country Characteristics that Determine FDI in Developing Countries: Recent Panel Data Evidence," Lahore Journal of Economics, Department of Economics, The Lahore School of Economics, vol. 14(2), pages 71-96, Jul-Dec.
    8. Edwards, Sebastian, 1993. "Openness, Trade Liberalization, and Growth in Developing Countries," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 31(3), pages 1358-1393, September.
    9. Amina Tabassum & M. Tariq Majeed, 2008. "Economic Growth and Income Inequality Relationship: Role of Credit Market Imperfection," The Pakistan Development Review, Pakistan Institute of Development Economics, vol. 47(4), pages 727-743.
    10. Paul M. Romer, 1994. "The Origins of Endogenous Growth," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 8(1), pages 3-22, Winter.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. M. Tariq Majeed & M. Nauman Malik, 2015. "Determinants of Household Poverty: Empirical Evidence from Pakistan," The Pakistan Development Review, Pakistan Institute of Development Economics, vol. 54(4), pages 701-718.
    2. M. Tariq MAJEED* & Guangfeng ZHANG**, 2014. "INEQUALITY, TRADE AND ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT:Evidence from Developing Countries," Pakistan Journal of Applied Economics, Applied Economics Research Centre, vol. 24(1), pages 39-73.
    3. Majeed, Dr. Muhammad Tariq, 2013. "Inequality, Trade and Development: Evidence from Developing Countries," MPRA Paper 50337, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    4. Majeed, Dr. Muhammad Tariq, 2013. "Inequality, Financial Development and Government: Evidence from Low-Income Developing Countries," MPRA Paper 50296, University Library of Munich, Germany.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Le Goff, Maelan & Singh, Raju Jan, 2013. "Does trade reduce poverty ? a view from Africa," Policy Research Working Paper Series 6327, The World Bank.
    2. Rivera, Sandra A. & Tsigas, Marinos E., 2005. "How does China’s growth affect India? An Economywide Analysis," Conference papers 331359, Purdue University, Center for Global Trade Analysis, Global Trade Analysis Project.
    3. Guntur Sugiyarto*, 2005. "A Review of: “Ramkishen S. Rajan, Economic Globalization and Asia: Essays on Finance, Trade and Taxation," Journal of the Asia Pacific Economy, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 10(3), pages 397-402.
    4. Arjan Lejour & Vladimir Solanic & Paul Tang, 2009. "EU Accession and Income Growth: An Empirical Approach," Transition Studies Review, Springer;Central Eastern European University Network (CEEUN), vol. 16(1), pages 127-144, May.
    5. Miet Maertens & Liesbeth Colen & Johan F. M. Swinnen, 2011. "Globalisation and poverty in Senegal: a worst case scenario?," European Review of Agricultural Economics, Oxford University Press and the European Agricultural and Applied Economics Publications Foundation, vol. 38(1), pages 31-54, March.
    6. Jeffrey Frankel & Andrew Rose, 2002. "An Estimate of the Effect of Common Currencies on Trade and Income," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 117(2), pages 437-466.
    7. Tena Junguito, Antonio, 2008. "Bairoch revisited : tariff structure and growth in the late 19th century," IFCS - Working Papers in Economic History.WH wp08-04, Universidad Carlos III de Madrid. Instituto Figuerola.
    8. Saqlain Latif Satti & Muhammad Shahid Hassan & Fozia Hayat & Sudharshan Reddy Paramati, 2016. "Economic Growth and Inflow of Remittances: Do They Combat Poverty in an Emerging Economy?," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 127(3), pages 1119-1134, July.
    9. MacDonald, Ronald & Majeed, Muhammad Tariq, 2010. "Distributional and Poverty Consequences of Globalization: A Dynamic Comparative Analysis for Developing Countries," SIRE Discussion Papers 2010-62, Scottish Institute for Research in Economics (SIRE).
    10. Maertens, Miet & Swinnen, Johan F.M., 2009. "Trade, Standards, and Poverty: Evidence from Senegal," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 37(1), pages 161-178, January.
    11. Ben Fine, 1998. "Endogenous Growth Theory: A Critical Assessment," Working Papers 80, Department of Economics, SOAS University of London, UK.
    12. Vincent Leyaro & Oliver Morrissey, 2010. "Protection and the Determinants of Household Income in Tanzania 1991 – 2007," Discussion Papers 10/03, University of Nottingham, CREDIT.
    13. Rana Hasan & Devashish Mitra & Mehmet Ulubasoglu, 2007. "Institutions and Policies for Growth and Poverty Reduction: The Role of Private Sector Development," Asian Development Review (ADR), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 24(01), pages 69-116.
    14. Devashish Mitra, 2019. "Responses to Trade Opening: Evidence and Lessons from Asia," Working Papers id:12977, eSocialSciences.
    15. César Calderón & Norman Loayza & Klaus Schmidt-Hebbel, 2006. "External Conditions and Growth Performance," Central Banking, Analysis, and Economic Policies Book Series, in: Ricardo Caballero & César Calderón & Luis Felipe Céspedes & Norman Loayza (Series Editor) & Klaus Sc (ed.),External Vulnerability and Preventive Policies, edition 1, volume 10, chapter 3, pages 041-070, Central Bank of Chile.
    16. Fahmida Khatun & Samina Hossain & Nepoleon Dewan, 2013. "Evaluating Aid for Trade on the Ground: Lessons from Bangladesh," CPD Report 5, Centre for Policy Dialogue (CPD).
    17. L. ALAN WINTERS & NEIL McCULLOCH & ANDREW McKAY, 2015. "Trade Liberalization and Poverty: The Evidence So Far," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: Non-Tariff Barriers, Regionalism and Poverty Essays in Applied International Trade Analysis, chapter 14, pages 271-314, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    18. van den Berg, Hendrik, 1997. "The relationship between international trade and economic growth in Mexico," The North American Journal of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 8(1), pages 1-21.
    19. Pham, Hung T, 2006. "Rural Nonfarm Employment Under Trade Reform Evidence From Vietnam, 1993-2002," MPRA Paper 6476, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    20. Swinnen Johan & Vandeplas Anneleen, 2012. "Rich Consumers and Poor Producers: Quality and Rent Distribution in Global Value Chains," Journal of Globalization and Development, De Gruyter, vol. 2(2), pages 1-30, January.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Trade Liberalization; Poverty; Employment; Development;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • F21 - International Economics - - International Factor Movements and International Business - - - International Investment; Long-Term Capital Movements
    • F41 - International Economics - - Macroeconomic Aspects of International Trade and Finance - - - Open Economy Macroeconomics
    • J24 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Human Capital; Skills; Occupational Choice; Labor Productivity

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:pra:mprapa:45077. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Joachim Winter (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/vfmunde.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.