Shahrukh Wani (aka: Shah)
International Growth Center, London School of Economics
Category: Uncategorized
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Why does Pakistan tax so little?
Pakistan has been unable to expand taxation. Despite several donor-supported reform attempts, the tax-to-GDP ratio continues to hover around 10% of the GDP. The inability to expand tax revenue contributes to significant public service delivery gaps: over 20 million people live without clean water, almost one in every three people do not have a decent toilet, and about 40% children under the age Read.
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How Pakistan’s sugar industry extracts rent
Published in The Express Tribune, May 8th, 2020. Co-authored with Dr. Adeel Malik. While an inquiry on the sugar sector has been made public for the first time, the crisis that necessitated this inquiry is a recurring feature of Pakistan’s sugar industry. Rattled by a controversy every 18 months, why is the sugar industry so Read.
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Pakistan’s urban transition
Our policymakers have failed to understand the importance of city governance. Read.
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What Pakistan needs to do to break the vicious cycle of IMF bailouts
Should we ignore much-needed underlying reforms, we are destined to be stuck in this vicious cycle. Read.
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Review of Punjab Local Government Bill 2019
The Punjab Local Government Bill 2019 aims to establish 9 metropolitan corporations for almost all major cities. Read.
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Pakistan’s Growth Story, Simplified
The story is now as Pakistani as it gets. We go to the IMF, get a few billion dollars, we use it to finance an import-led growth bubble which increases domestic consumption. It’s all good so far. We say goodbye to the IMF. Consumption allows us to proclaim that we’re growing. The GDP is growing, Read.
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Reforming Pakistan’s tax system: Some thoughts
Increasing taxation is possibly the most fundamental challenge Pakistan faces today, not only to adequately finance public investment and services, but also to establish a fairer society. Read.
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Why Pakistan will go to the IMF again, and again and again
To fix the economy, focus on the political discourse Read.
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Thoughts on Joe Studwell’s ‘How Asia Works’
I just completed Joe Studwell’s new book “How Asia Works: Success and Failure in the World’s Most Dynamic Region.” Here are some thoughts I tweeted about after reading it. 1) Size of farms matters! Studwell argues that having a small (3ish acre) family-owned farms boosts agriculture productivity (read: land reforms!). There are various loopholes countries (like Read.
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Imran Khan envisions a Pakistani welfare state. Is it possible?
This is an archived version of an article written for Dawn.com, published on Aug, 28th 2018. If you want to share it, please do so the version on Dawn.com. Pakistan has a new leader at the helm who, if his first address to the nation is to be considered at face value, is set to make a radical Read.
Shahrukh Wani 