IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/bri/uobdis/24-778.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Pakistan and the rest: A tale of dismal productivity growth, misallocation, and missing transformation

Author

Listed:
  • Ahmed Pirzada
  • Aadil Nakhoda
  • Saihan Mohammad
  • Sarah Javaid

Abstract

We leverage newly available datasets to study key factors which explain why Pakistan has seen limited transformation in recent decades. First, we show that one of the reasons for this is low productivity growth. Average labour productivity growth due to within sector improvements equals only 0.73% between 1990 - 2018. This is explained by decreasing capital-output ratio. In sharp contrast, factor inputs only explain 6.22% of variation in labour productivity in Pakistan. Second, while we show that the extent of misallocation across the economy has decreased over time, there is significant misallocation between the agriculture and the non-agriculture sectors. Finally, we explore the extent to which GVC linkages can facilitate the transformation process by decreasing misallocation and increasing productivity. Throughout the paper, we also highlight trends in other developing countries.

Suggested Citation

  • Ahmed Pirzada & Aadil Nakhoda & Saihan Mohammad & Sarah Javaid, 2024. "Pakistan and the rest: A tale of dismal productivity growth, misallocation, and missing transformation," Bristol Economics Discussion Papers 24/778, School of Economics, University of Bristol, UK.
    • Handle: RePEc:bri:uobdis:24/778
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.bristol.ac.uk/efm/media/workingpapers/working_papers/pdffiles/dp24778.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Restuccia, Diego & Yang, Dennis Tao & Zhu, Xiaodong, 2008. "Agriculture and aggregate productivity: A quantitative cross-country analysis," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 55(2), pages 234-250, March.
    2. Berthold Herrendorf & Todd Schoellman, 2015. "Why is Measured Productivity so Low in Agriculture?," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 18(4), pages 1003-1022, October.
    3. Dean Karlan & Robert Osei & Isaac Osei-Akoto & Christopher Udry, 2014. "Agricultural Decisions after Relaxing Credit and Risk Constraints," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 129(2), pages 597-652.
    4. Francisco Alvarez-Cuadrado & Markus Poschke, 2011. "Structural Change Out of Agriculture: Labor Push versus Labor Pull," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 3(3), pages 127-158, July.
    5. Daron Acemoglu & James A. Robinson, 2001. "A Theory of Political Transitions," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 91(4), pages 938-963, September.
    6. Diego Restuccia & Richard Rogerson, 2008. "Policy Distortions and Aggregate Productivity with Heterogeneous Plants," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 11(4), pages 707-720, October.
    7. Herrendorf, Berthold & Rogerson, Richard & Valentinyi, Ákos, 2014. "Growth and Structural Transformation," Handbook of Economic Growth, in: Philippe Aghion & Steven Durlauf (ed.), Handbook of Economic Growth, edition 1, volume 2, chapter 6, pages 855-941, Elsevier.
    8. Margaret S. McMillan & Dani Rodrik, 2011. "Globalization, Structural Change and Productivity Growth," NBER Working Papers 17143, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    9. Borchert, Ingo & Larch, Mario & Shikher, Serge & Yotov, Yoto V., 2021. "The International Trade and Production Database for Estimation (ITPD-E)," International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 166(C), pages 140-166.
    10. Douglas Gollin & David Lagakos & Michael E. Waugh, 2014. "Agricultural Productivity Differences across Countries," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 104(5), pages 165-170, May.
    11. Diao, Xinshen & Dyck, John H. & Lee, Chinkook & Skully, David W. & Somwaru, Agapi, 1999. "Structural Change And Agricultural Protection: The Costs Of Korean Agricultural Policy 1975 And 1990," 1999 Annual meeting, August 8-11, Nashville, TN 21492, American Agricultural Economics Association (New Name 2008: Agricultural and Applied Economics Association).
    12. Barro, Robert J. & Lee, Jong Wha, 2013. "A new data set of educational attainment in the world, 1950–2010," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 104(C), pages 184-198.
    13. Wadho, Waqar & Chaudhry, Azam, 2022. "Innovation strategies and productivity growth in developing countries: Firm-level evidence from Pakistani manufacturers," Journal of Asian Economics, Elsevier, vol. 81(C).
    14. Guerrieri, Paolo & Meliciani, Valentina, 2005. "Technology and international competitiveness: The interdependence between manufacturing and producer services," Structural Change and Economic Dynamics, Elsevier, vol. 16(4), pages 489-502, December.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Chen, Chaoran, 2020. "Technology adoption, capital deepening, and international productivity differences," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 143(C).
    2. Murat Ungor, 2017. "Productivity Growth and Labor Reallocation: Latin America versus East Asia," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 24, pages 25-42, March.
    3. Vollrath, Dietrich, 2014. "The efficiency of human capital allocations in developing countries," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 108(C), pages 106-118.
    4. Douglas Gollin & David Lagakos & Michael E. Waugh, 2014. "The Agricultural Productivity Gap," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 129(2), pages 939-993.
    5. Sinha Rishabh, 2021. "Sectoral Productivity Gaps and Aggregate Productivity," The B.E. Journal of Macroeconomics, De Gruyter, vol. 21(1), pages 37-71, January.
    6. Cai, Wenbiao, 2015. "Structural change accounting with labor market distortions," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 57(C), pages 54-64.
    7. Barker, Tom & Üngör, Murat, 2019. "Vietnam: The next asian Tiger?," The North American Journal of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 47(C), pages 96-118.
    8. Alonso-Carrera, Jaime & Raurich, Xavier, 2018. "Labor mobility, structural change and economic growth," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 56(C), pages 292-310.
    9. Jones, C.I., 2016. "The Facts of Economic Growth," Handbook of Macroeconomics, in: J. B. Taylor & Harald Uhlig (ed.), Handbook of Macroeconomics, edition 1, volume 2, chapter 0, pages 3-69, Elsevier.
    10. Tasso Adamopoulos & Diego Restuccia, 2020. "Land Reform and Productivity: A Quantitative Analysis with Micro Data," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 12(3), pages 1-39, July.
    11. Cao, Huoqing & Chen, Chaoran & Xi, Xican, 2024. "Home Production and Gender Gap in Structural Change," MPRA Paper 122334, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    12. Pubali Chakraborty & Anand Chopra & Lalit Contractor, 2024. "The Equilibrium Impact of Agricultural Support Prices and Input Subsidies," Working Papers 123, Ashoka University, Department of Economics.
    13. Teignier, Marc, 2018. "The role of trade in structural transformation," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 130(C), pages 45-65.
    14. Le, Kien, 2020. "Land use restrictions, misallocation in agriculture, and aggregate productivity in Vietnam," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 145(C).
    15. Wingender, Asger Moll, 2015. "Skill complementarity and the dual economy," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 74(C), pages 269-285.
    16. Mike Waugh & David Lagakos & Doug Gollin, 2011. "The Agricultural Productivity Gap in Developing Countries," 2011 Meeting Papers 1397, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    17. Herrendorf, Berthold & Rogerson, Richard & Valentinyi, Ákos, 2014. "Growth and Structural Transformation," Handbook of Economic Growth, in: Philippe Aghion & Steven Durlauf (ed.), Handbook of Economic Growth, edition 1, volume 2, chapter 6, pages 855-941, Elsevier.
    18. Gottlieb Charles & Grobovšek Jan & Poschke Markus & Saltiel Fernando, 2022. "Lockdown Accounting," The B.E. Journal of Macroeconomics, De Gruyter, vol. 22(1), pages 197-210, January.
    19. Gottlieb, Charles & Grobovšek, Jan, 2019. "Communal land and agricultural productivity," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 138(C), pages 135-152.
    20. Franz Hamann & Fernando Arias-Rodr�guez & Jesus Bejarano & Margarita Gafaro & Juan C. Mendez-Vizcaino & Andrea Paola Poveda-Olarte, 2019. "Productividad total de los factores y eficiencia en el uso de los recursos productivos en Colombia," Revista ESPE - Ensayos Sobre Política Económica, Banco de la República, issue 89, pages 1-54.

    More about this item

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:bri:uobdis:24/778. 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: Vicky Jackson (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/sebriuk.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.