Comment by Riaz Haq on November 7, 2022 at 10:57am

Miftah Ismail
@MiftahIsmail
I gave a talk at Habib University a few days ago. This one clip has touched a nerve with a lot of people. Let know what you think. (Hopefully for a little bit you can come out of your partisan posture and judge the argument on its merits).

https://twitter.com/MiftahIsmail/status/1589659579822243841?s=20&am...

Former finance minister Miftah Ismail said on Monday Pakistan is “intolerant as hell” and “belligerently uneducated” as the elite capture of resources has left no space for reforms.

https://www.dawn.com/news/1715551

Speaking at Habib University, the businessman-turned-politician wore the hat of an economics professor to talk to students in the uneasy presence of the educational institute’s rich benefactors who have “invented their own economies” in an otherwise poor country.

He referred to the families of the Dawoods and Habibs — some of their members sat in the front row — as evidence of poor upward social mobility in Pakistan. They’re the richest Pakistanis of today just like their fathers were the richest Pakistanis of yesteryear, he said. “What shot at success does the son of an ordinary Pakistani have against my son?” he asked, rhetorically.

Mr Ismail’s address mostly consisted of views and anecdotes that he’s already told many times over — word for word, in some cases — since his latest five-month stint at the top of the finance ministry. He reiterated the I-saved-Pakistan-from-default message while calling the idea of the finance ministry controlling the exchange rate “nuts”.

His hour-long talk was salted with the seasoning of doom and gloom. Pakistan will likely be a country for the top one per cent even in 2047, he said. “Which problem have we ever solved?” he said while referring to the decades-old issues of low literacy, terrorism and the circular debt that still plague the nation of 220 million.

Responding to a question about the likelihood of the country receiving climate reparations — dollars that the world’s biggest polluters are supposed to give to developing nations for suffering the consequences of climate change — Mr Ismail said their likelihood was minimal.

Quoting from two meetings he had with a group of ambassadors from European nations, Mr Ismail said the country shouldn’t be expecting any climate reparations whatsoever. “Pakistan isn’t a well-liked country, to put it diplomatically,” he said.

He made a strong case for privatising the twin gas distribution companies, which were losing one-fifth of their supplies under the head of unaccounted-for gas (UFG). “The issue of UFG will be solved within one year if you privatise the two companies,” he said while implying that their directors lack the so-called skin in the game to bring about any real change in the state-owned enterprises.

Mr Ismail gave assurances that the central bank was going to penalise eight commercial banks that were caught manipulating the exchange rate to make billions in profit while he sat at the helm of the finance ministry.

Replying to a question, the former finance minister acknowledged the outsized role of the military in politics. “It isn’t a good thing. The influence of the military must come down over the years,” he said.

Comment by Riaz Haq on November 12, 2022 at 10:27am

Study reveals social mobility booming in Pakistan

https://profit.pakistantoday.com.pk/2018/10/29/study-reveals-social...

The Standard Chartered Bank (SCB-Pak) has conducted a study on ‘Emerging Affluent Consumers’ in eleven countries including Pakistan, in which it found that nearly two-thirds or 64 per cent of emerging affluent consumers in Pakistan are experiencing upward social mobility while 11 per cent are enjoying ‘supercharged’ social mobility.

The Emerging Affluent Study 2018 – climbing the prosperity ladder – examines the views of 11,000 emerging affluent consumers- individuals who are earning enough to save and invest – from 11 markets across Asia, Africa and the Middle East.

Commenting on the study, SCB Retail Banking Head Syed Mujtaba Abbas said, “Ambitious consumers are on an upward social trajectory; they are surpassing their parents’ success in education, careers and home ownership. As their ambitions and aspirations grow, they are demanding convenient financial services and digital technology to broaden their access to money management and advance their financial wellbeing. It is an exciting journey where they are not only improving their own lives, but they are also fuelling growth in some of the world’s most exciting markets.”

According to the study, the average figure for social mobility among the emerging affluent consumers across the markets is 59 per cent, and of these 7 per cent are experiencing supercharged social mobility.

Pakistan’s socially mobile consumers, as identified by the study, have had impressive earnings growth, with almost half (44 per cent) enjoying a salary increase of 10 per cent or more in the past year, and more than a third (34 per cent) seeing their earning jump by 50 per cent or more in the past five years.

In Pakistan, the socially mobile people are also better educated and achieving higher levels of employment and homeownership than their parents. As many as 89 per cent went to universities, compared to 66 per cent of their fathers and less than half (49 per cent) of their mothers, while 83 per cent are in a management position or running their own businesses compared to 65 per cent of their fathers and 28 per cent of their mothers. Similarly, as many as 88 per cent of the socially mobile people own their own home, compared to 81 per cent of their parents at the same age.

Levels of optimism among the emerging affluent in Pakistan are even higher than reality, with 79 per cent believing they are in a better financial position than their parents compared to the 64 per cent in the study that are actually socially mobile.

More than two-thirds (70 per cent) of the emerging affluent in Pakistan say their familiarity with digital tools have been vital to their personal success, while 73 per cent say online banking makes them feel that they have more control over their money and investments, and 67 per cent say digital money management has helped them get closer to achieving their financial goals.

Pakistan’s emerging affluent is comfortable going online for financial advice, with the majority (60 per cent) saying they would invest in financial products online if an on-demand adviser was available. Risk is not a problem for the emerging affluent if strong rewards are possible 58 per cent would accept a high level of risk for a high level of return when investing their money in online financial products.

Comment by Riaz Haq on November 13, 2022 at 4:44pm

INTERGENERATIONAL ECONOMIC MOBILITY: THE CASE OF NORTH-
WESTERN PAKISTAN
Ansa Javed Khan1, Sajjad Ahmad Jan2, Jawad Rahim Afridi3*, Arshia Hashmi4, Muhammad Azeem Ahmed5 1Assistant Director, P&D, Bacha Khan University, Charsadda, Pakistan; 2Assistant Professor, Department of Economics, University of Peshawar, Peshawar, Pakistan; 3*Lecturer, Department of Economics, Sarhad University of Science & IT, Peshawar, Pakistan; 4Assistant Professor, The University of Faisalabad, Department of Management Studies, Faisalabad, Pakistan; 5Associate Professor, Barani Institute of Sciences, Pakistan.
Email: 1*director_pnd@bkuc.edu.pk, 2sajjadahmadjan@uop.edu.pk, 3*jrafridi67@gmail.com, 4arshia.hashim@tuf.edu.pk, 5azeem@baraniinstitute.edu.pk
Article History: Received on 19th June 2021, Revised on 26th June 2021, Published on 29th June 2021


https://www.sciencegate.app/document/10.18510/hssr.2021.93141


Access to Education and Intergenerational Economic Mobility
The following table 1 shows the change in educational status which has taken place between the parents and children’s generations for the overall sample as well as for the sub-groups (Majority and Minority Tribes). The absolute numbers (outside parentheses) and the percentage (within parentheses) in different cells of the table show the people who are illiterate or at different levels of education. The table on one hand shows the intergenerational mobility of people up and down the education ladder and on the other hand reveals the wide and persistent educational gap between the majority and minority tribes. The table shows that 26 % of the respondents in the kids’ generation do not have any education versus 46 % in the parents’ generation. The results affirm the government’s claims and the common perception that, on average, more people have become literate through time and therefore the people in the children’s generation are more likely to be educated than their parent's generation. Further, the college and university graduates in the children’s generation outnumber the school graduates while school graduates outnumber the higher two educational categories in the parents’ generation as most of the students in past used to drop out at both primary or high school levels and couldn’t manage to get into a college or university for higher studies.

The aggregate results for the whole sample are actually driven by the majority tribes as it shows identical trends from the parents’ generation to the children’s generation in all educational. The majority tribe has succeeded in decreasing the number of illiterates from 33% in the parents’ generation to 11% in the children’s generation. College and university graduates (total of 60%) outnumber the school graduates and the illiterate (total of 40%) in the children’s generation as compared to the parents’ generation in the majority tribe where the former is 26% and the latter is 73%. This indicates a visible upward movement of the educational ladder by the members of the majority tribe. The situation of education and literacy in the minority tribe is deplorable if the comparison is either made on basis of children’s and parents’ generations or if the educational attainment levels of the minority and majority tribes are compared. The illiterates outnumber all the other educational categories as in sharp contrast to the educational attainment levels of the majority tribe. The data further reveals that no or only a negligible improvement in the educational status of the people belonging to the minority tribe has taken place between the children’s and parents’ generations. This affirms our presumption that in the North-Western parts of Pakistan, the tribal affiliation of a person determines his or her access to education. The ease of access to education then further transforms into economic mobility or immobility of the people.

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