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Economic Growth and Fiscal Austerity in Pakistan

Venue: Conference Hall, CDPR

Date: 19th January 2017, Thursday

Time: 3:00 pm to 4:00 pm

Consortium for Development Policy Research (CDPR) hosted its sixth Lahore Policy Exchange talk on “Economic Growth and Fiscal Austerity in Pakistan.” Economic policy discussions in Pakistan have been dominated by the themes of revenue mobilisation and fiscal austerity. This has important implications for economic growth. While one view holds that austerity dampens growth, the other sees austerity as a safeguard against fiscal deficits and growth-slowing, unsustainable debt. A panel of notable economists spoke at the event: Nadeem ul-Haque, former Deputy Chairman of the Planning Commission and former senior official at the International Monetary Fund and Salman Shah, former caretaker Finance Minister of Pakistan and economic advisor to the government. Both the speakers discussed how fiscal austerity impacts Pakistan’s economic growth. Dr. Naved Hamid, Director of Center of Research in Economics and Business (CREB) moderated the discussion and provided opening remarks. Policy exchange dialogue took place at the end, when the question and answer session took place amongst the audience and the presenters.