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This paper estimates the size of informal economy in Pakistan by using monetary approach with some modifications, electricity consumption approach and MIMIC model. Under monetary approach, we take care of the issue of the stationarity of variables and use autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) model instead of simple OLS and add education as an additional factor affecting the size of informal economy along with some other technical improvements in the standard monetary models. The electricity consumption approach and MIMIC models are used for the first time in case of Pakistan. The results show that the informal economy in Pakistan has been about 30 percent of the total economy which declined considerably in 2000s. Currently, about 20 percent of the economic transactions are taking place in the informal sector.

The paper explores how the monetary and fiscal policies have coordinated with each other in Pakistan. It argues that monetary and fiscal policies have been executed independently throughout the study period that is 1964-65 to 2008-09 and there have been very few instances of coordination between the two policies while addressing prevailing economic conditions. The paper does not find any difference between the behavior of monetary and fiscal policies before and after the establishment of Monetary and Fiscal Policies Coordination Board in 1994. Whatever instances of coordination were found were clustered in military regimes; which may be one of the reasons of macroeconomic stability in such regimes.

This dissertation takes on some important issues related with national accounts of Pakistan including (a) re-estimation of past series of national accounts (prior to the year 1999-00) to make it consistent with the new official series for years 1999-00 onward at new base year prices; (b) quarterisation of annual series of national accounts to remove one of the major stumbling block in research by making available high frequency data, (c) estimation of provincial accounts with new base year prices, and (d) estimation the contribution of total factor productivity (TFP) to economic growth with the new series of gross domestic product and its sub-sectors. Thus by embarking upon the above mentioned issues, the dissertation contributes to the economic literature in the following respects: • It provides a new set of national accounts at 1999-00 prices as well as at current prices for a period from 1970-71 to date consistent with the new official estimates for recent years. • It gives quarterly data of GDP and all its sectors/sub-sectors both at constant prices of 1999-00 and at current prices.1 A by-product of this exercise is quarterly GDP deflator (with 1999-00=100) which was earlier not available in Pakistan. • It presents estimates of provincial GDP and all its sectors/sub-sectors covering all the provinces in a consistent framework.2 • It provides series of gross fixed capital formation and capital stock estimated at disaggregated level and at prices of 1999-00. • It estimates contribution of TFP, capital and labour to the growth of GDP and its sectors/sub-sectors (growth rates of new series at 1999-00 prices).

In Pakistan, only annual estimates of national accounts are available officially. Although quarterly real gross domestic product has been estimated by some studies like Kemal & Arby (2004) and Bengaliwala (1995), no attempt has been made so far to estimate quarterly gross fixed capital formation – a key macroeconomic variable. This study presents a methodology to quarterise gross fixed investment in Pakistan and estimates a quarterly series for the period 1971Q3 to 2006Q2. Using the commodity flow approach, total gross fixed investment has been disaggregated into four components, i.e. machinery and equipment, furniture and fixture, structure and land improvement for annual data of selected years and then each component is quarterised on the basis of related indicators for which quarterly data is available officially.

The paper reviews the trend of seigniorage earnings by State Bank of Pakistan and commercial banks. It is found that seigniorage revenue of the SBP has declined overtime which indicates autonomy of the central bank as well as less reliance of the government on SBP’s resources for budget financing. In general, a direct relationship has been observed between seigniorage and inflation in Pakistan. However, at the two extremes of very high or very low inflation an inverse relation is detected.

This documents attempts to present, in a concise manner the historical evolution,the various functions, as well as the present organizational setup of the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP). There was a great need for such a study and I am glad that Mr. Farooq Arby, a research economist at SBP has come up with this paper by skilfully presenting different dimensions of this organization.

Commercial banks undertake business of risk in an environment of asymmetric information. This is why, the industrial economists who are interested in theory of incomplete information and principal-agent framework have found the banking industry a promising field of research. There are number of studies on the behavior of commercial banks in various countries under structure-conduct-performance paradigm of industrial economics. However, there is hardly one in the context of Pakistan. This study attempted to analyze the structure and performance of commercial banks in Pakistan under the framework of industrial organization.

Macroeconomic policies are meant to achieve non-inflationary, stable growth. There are two major groups of policy instruments to achieve the purpose; one is related to monetary conditions and the other to fiscal conditions. Monetary instruments are employed by the central bank and fiscal instruments are employed by ministry of finance. The objectives and implications of policy measures taken by the two institutions often conflict with each other and thus call for policy coordination for effective implementation of policy decisions to achieve the set targets. The policy coordination has to be supported by concrete institutional and operating arrangements like monetary and fiscal coordination board. In Pakistan there was no concept of such policy coordination before financial sector reforms which were initiated in 1989-90. This financial reforms and restructuring process necessitated the monetary and financial policy coordination and a monetary and fiscal policy coordination board has been established in Pakistan

Gross domestic product may be considered, a combination of three processes viz., long-run trend, business cycles and short-run shocks. The series of GDP can be decomposed in to its three components by using some statistical method. Such a decomposition of real GDP of Pakistan reveals that the Pakistan’s economy has a declining growth in long-run trend since early 1980s that however, is expected to start rising in 2001-02. Pakistan is also facing a recessionary phase of third business cycle, which is expected to end in 2004-05.