Political Economy of a Post-Colonial State 3rd Edition

Pakistan Economy: Past, Present, and Future

By: Shahid Hussain Raja

Narrated by: Virtual Voice

This book attempts to explain the development experience of a post-colonial state against the backdrop of ever-shifting ideas about growth and then presents a plan of action to accelerate its rate of economic growth. .Divided into thirteen chapters, it starts with recounting the initial conditions at the time of her independence; acute shortages of physical, financial and economic resources at its disposal, the administrative handicaps, the abysmal state of infrastructure, etc.

It then examines in a bit of detail, the efforts made during the seven decades of her existence as an independent nation-state to transform its political economy from an underdeveloped stage to the one it is now. During these seven decades, Pakistan initiated a formal planning process in the 1950s and strengthened its industrial sector in the 1960s, toyed with the idea of a socialist transformation of the country in the 1970s for a short period and then adopted economic liberalisation and global integration as cornerstones of its economic management and growth policy.

Annexure A after Chapter Twelve sums up the seven decades of development experience of Pakistan highlighting what it did marvellously, what it did marginally and where it failed miserably during its development journey. It also recounts the main features of the political economy of Pakistan evolved over the past 70 years of its existence as an independent nation-state Part 2 of the book suggests a plan of action for accelerating the rate of economic growth of Pakistan. It starts with the stock-taking of the political economy of Pakistan by carrying out its SWOT Analysis and listing the six main challenges it is facing. The rest of the book would then deal with recommending policies and strategies to respond to these challenges