A Measure of Economic Growth in East and in West Pakistan

In: The Pakistan development review: PDR, Band 1, Heft 2, S. 49-54

Abstract

It is sometimes said that "national planning will simply have
no meaning if it completely ignores the economic disparities between the
two wings and fails to evolve a sensible pattern of regional planning"2.
The lack of much essential data on a regional basis, however, renders
any precise estimate of the relative growth rates almost impossible.
Data either are not available or are inadequate on such important
variables as production, income, consumption and trade, so that even a
correct evaluation of past development efforts is not possible. The
implications of such a situation for future planning are not difficult
to understand. In this article an attempt is made to estimate the
absorption of specified commodities in East and West Pakistan
separately3. This will indicate the pattern of consumption and also give
a rough idea about the growth rate of the two wings. With this purpose
in view, quantity indices of absorption are prepared for each wing
separately, taking data on availability of goods and prices from the
Institute's monograph on Inflation. The quantity indi¬ces, however, are
not of course strictly comparable with national income estimates because
of the difference in coverage of the two series. National income data
include government, services, trade, etc., while the quantity indices
cover only specified goods available for each region.