Impact of Population Growth on Current Account Balance of Pakistan.

Pakistan being 6^th most populous country in the world has 177 million population with total fertility rate 3.5 per woman and population growth rate 2.05 percent. Family planning indicators reflect that Pakistan has comparatively lowest position in the region as well as in Islamic countries. Population growth rate is an important determinant of current account balance, however, no previous study has checked impact of population growth on CAB in Pakistan. This study investigates the impact of population growth on current account balance as percentage of GDP (CABGDP) of Pakistan by applying Autoregressive Distributive Lag (ARDL) approach of co-integration for the period 1984-2010. The findings of the study show that increase in population growth worsens CABGDP of Pakistan in the long run. The negative sign and significance of coefficient of error correction term in the short run model also confirms long run relationship between population growth and CABGDP in Pakistan. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]