This paper explores the impact of two shocks, trade liberalisation policies and decline in remittances, on welfare and poverty in Pakistan. It begins by reviewing the economy, which reveals that during the Nineties although import tariffs were reduced by 55 percent, poverty however remained...

Free trade benefits are not well-harnessed despite the WTO because of the regional groupings. Such groupings have, in fact, resulted in a chaos. Pakistan has been a member of the SAARC and the ECO. In both the groups, intra-regional trade accounts for only four percent of total trade. The...

The paper argues that if Pakistan is to survive and prosper under the competitive conditions of the new global economy, then it must move away from its overwhelming dependence on "cottonomics" into more technology- and knowledge-based products where global growth is concentrated. For this to...