sparklingway
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Indeed ignorance is a bliss. My salutes:-All I can say is, ignorance is bliss.
Not only does the income disparity increase, it accelerated, although the variation is highly dependent on eras. Nonetheless, it disproves your claims of improvements in income inequality.
Source : Hussain, Shahzad et al. "Globalization and Income Distribution: Evidence from Pakistan". European Journal of Social Sciences. Vol 8(4) : 2009
Let me continue to elaborate:-
Between 2001-02 and 2004-05 inequality increased in most of the economic sectors, i.e. Agriculture, Manufacturing, Electricity, Construction, Wholesale and Retail Trade, Community and personal services and undefined sector. These sectors employed 87.5% of all head of households in 2004-05. In general, inequality increased in economic sectors, which witnessed a high economic growth.
It looks to me as if the author is trying to say that income inequality increased in most sectors while overall profits also increased. I guess that means an exponential increase in the salaries, profits and benefits of the bourgeois, while a crushing, low production cost approach which has suppressed the working class.
Let us see further:-
The results show that consumption inequality as measured by Gini Coefficient has increased across sectors in Pakistan between 2001-02 and 2004-05 (see Table 2). Except few, most of the sectoral consumption distributions reflect an increase in inequality over the period. Financing, Mining and Transport sectors were the exception. While the Financing and Mining sectors have very small share in population, the results may be biased due to sampling error. The growth in Transport sectors was not enough compared to other sectors which observed an increase in Inequality over the period. However, inequality increased in most of the economic sectors, i.e. Agriculture, Manufacturing, Electricity, Construction, Wholesale and Retail Trade, Community and personal services and undefined sector. These sectors employed 87.5% of all head of households in 2004-05.
Conclusion from paper:
The paper examined level as well as the changes in sectoral inequality in Pakistan using two most recent household surveys data for 2001-02 and 2004-05. The results suggest the Financing sector as the most unequal distribution of consumption followed by Mining, Manufacturing sector and Community services sector. It may be noted that the household head employed in Financing sector are those working in financial institutions, insurance, real estate and business. The household head employed in Manufacturing sector comprised of those working in various industries whereas the household head employed in Community sector included of those working in mainly public administration and defense services, social and community services. It may be due to the fact that these sectors are skilled based and remuneration is generally higher in these sectors relative to others.
The results show that except few, inequality increased in most of the sectors 2001-02 and 2004-05. Financing, Mining and Transport sectors were the exception. It may be due to the fact that Financing and Mining sectors have very small share in population and the sample size is also small which may not be sufficient to capture the changes in inequality in these sectors. However, inequality increased in most of the economic sectors, i.e. Agriculture, Manufacturing, Electricity, Construction, Wholesale and Retail Trade, Community and personal services and undefined sector. These sectors employed 87.5% of all head of households in 2004-05. The higher growth in mean consumption expenditure led to a rise in inequality at sectoral level over the period. Thus, changes inequalities are consistent with growth in mean expenditure in these sectors.
It is noteworthy that inequality also increased in those sectors where most of the poor work such as Agriculture, Construction and Wholesale and Retail Trade sectors. These changes may not be pro-poor, if examines by the definition of Kakwani and Pernia (2000), and Datt and Ravallion (1992) who argue that growth is pro-poor when growth lowers inequality.
These changes are not desirable as rising inequality tend to reinforce the existing sectoral inequality and exclude the poor from opportunities that others enjoy such as a better education, access to loans, which are essential to develop their productive potentials. It is thus imperative to reduce income inequality to reduce poverty. Thus, if government aims to reduce absolute poverty via its growth accelerating strategy, it should focus primarily on policies to equalize the remuneration across sectors to reduce inequality via tax and expenditure polices which not only generate employment but also reduce poverty.
Source : Anwar, Talat. "Growth and Sectoral Inequality in Pakistan: 2001-02 to 2004-05". Pakistan Economic and Social Review . Vol. 45(2) : 2007
Now we move onto Pakistan Institute of Development Economics, our premiere institute of research in economics. Source
A very basic overview:-
Consumption Inequality over the years rose after '99:-
Till the mid eighties, trend in consumption inequality was same as in income inequality. After that inequality declined till 1998-99 and started increasing again to the previous level.
Now moving to another paper:-
Source : Jamal, Haroon. "Does Inequality Matter For Poverty Reduction? Evidence From Pakistan’s Poverty Trends". Social Policy and Development Centre. Research Report No.58. 2004
And these are values where poverty figures, especially of 2005, where fudged as proven conclusively by many authors. If you want evidence on that, I can bring up that as well.
You are welcome to check the sources. But, I will warn you before you make any pointless and misguided claims. Consumption and household income have increased since '99 levels, but so has the upward mobility of a large number of people. This makes it impossible for a larger number of people to live within their means. Overall as numerous sources have stated, income inequality has risen. And I have to premeditate again and tell you that I do not hold the opinion that somehow the '90s was a time of economic prosperity but the years '00 - '06 brought devastation to our economy for it has eaten our economic and financial structure like termites. I haven't even gone into a deep academic research, just basic Google searches. Give me a couple of days over the summers and I'm pretty sure I'll gather a book load of data to support my claims.
As I have said earlier, growth in the services sector is not pro-poor and without creating jobs, creates an economic bubble where an ever decreasing proportion of the population amasses wealth. In the words of the noted economist Kaiser Bengali, "in the period when the agriculture sector grew by 1.5 percent and the banking sector grew by 30 percent ….. this was jobless growth". I have pointed out to you time and again that the people who were hovering around the fringes of the upper middle class managed to enter the upper middle class but the proletariat and working class faced increasing pressures for they were not employed by banks, investment firms or insurance companies, who were able to monopolize and cartelize under the watchful eye of their friend Shaukat Aziz.
You choose to read Dr. Ashfaque Ahmed, Dr. Ishrat Hussain, Dr. Salman Shah and their likes. I tend to read them but agree with Dr. Meekal Aziz, Dr. Kaiser Bengali, Dr. Ali Cheema and their likes. One group focuses solely on Import substitution industrialization (ISI), Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) and Real GDP growth rates. The other divides sectorially to examine that the agricultural sector witnessed staganancy, consumer financing was the key to the "success", financial sector returned record profits, investment was inefficient (tax waivers, one-door policies for foreign firms, subsidies, protection from labour market through anti-union laws etc.)
Having socialist leanings, I reject the idea of "trickle down effect" for I am convinced through extensive study that the "trickle down effect" never takes place and while capitalistic economies focused on such a role have provided ever rising living standards, they inherently promotes a rule of the elite and this in turn allows them to exploit the masses. Marx and Engel never argued that it was impossible for living standards to improve under capitalism but that economic and social crises can never be indefinitely postponed under such an economic system.
Try to move beyond rhetoric, simplistic analysis, elite view of economic growth and look at structural changes rather than import oriented improvements. I did not imagine that I would ever convince somebody with an avatar of Pervez Musharraf, but I find it difficult to believe that people can be so elitist that they are willing to crush the larger percentage of people, so that they can move in their cars in the big cities.
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