More than two decades of economic planning in Pakistan have not succeeded at least in containing unemployment within tolerable limits. Even the People’s Works Programme introduced as a “crash” programme to get the situation under control has failed so far to achieve its major objective.

A widely spread belief among economists is that monetary policy has relatively short-lived effects on real variables such as unemployment. Previous studies indicate that monetary policy affects the output gap only at business cycle frequencies, but the effects on unemployment may well be more...

A widely spread belief among economists is that monetary policy has relatively short-lived effects on real variables such as unemployment. Previous studies indicate that monetary policy affects the output gap only at business cycle frequencies, but the effects on unemployment may well be more...