Pakistan

Pakistan's economic performance over the past 65 years has confounded its critics – when the country has performed much better than expected, especially in the early years – and disappointed those who had high expectations, given its initial start and economic potential. The central question that the contributors to this volume seek to answer is how to reverse the current prolonged period of low growth and high inflation that Pakistan has experienced, and to suggest and implement measures that would decisively move the economy onto a more sustainable growth path. The book draws on the wide experience of the authors at the highest level of policy-making to put forward realistic and concrete policies keeping in mind what works and does not work in the current socio-economic-political milieu. It also moves beyond the income measurement of poverty toward a more comprehensive analysis of what the best way is to target poverty in Pakistan.

Rashid Amjad is Director of the Graduate Institute of Development Studies at the Lahore School of Economics, and former vice-chancellor of the Pakistan Institute of Development Economics (PIDE).

Shahid Javed Burki retired from the World Bank in 1999 after having served in a number of senior positions including as director of the Bank's China operations and regional vice-president of its Latin America and Caribbean office. Since 2008, he has been a visiting senior fellow at the Institute of South Asian Studies, National University of Singapore.