Naveed Shaikh

Trade Liberalization, Welfare and Poverty in Pakistan Naveed Shaikh

Though Pakistan has been impressively following a liberal trade policy by substantially slashing the general tariff since 1992, yet there have been some commodity groups (food related and fuels and oil)which have been protected with rising trends in the import tariffs. Here the welfare loss of the selective protectionist trade policy and welfare gains of general liberal trade policy incurring on the poorest and ordinary households using data on Household expenditure, prices, and labour wages are measured. The uniqueness, inter alia, of the book is that first time nontraded goods have been included in the trade and welfare analysis of Pakistan. In case of Pakistan, the present book suggests substantial gains for poorest and ordinary households from liberal trade policy and substantial losses to them from selective protection. Keeping in view the nature of the theme, the present book can be a very useful source for MS and PhD research students of international economy, economics and development economics. It can be a wonderful piece of work for the general readers as well who are interested in knowing about global economic and trade mechanisms and dynamics.