A linear expenditure system over eighteen commodity groups is estimated for each of the rural and urban areas of the four provinces of Pakistan using the 1984-85 Household Income and Expenditure Survey. Various commodity groups are classified into necessities and luxuries for small, medium and large households separately for each of the eight regions of Pakistan. Using appropriate F-tests, we found considerable difference in household consumption patterns across rural and urban areas and across the four provinces of Pakistan. The assumption of provincial similarity in consumption patterns is rejected more forcefully than the assumption of rural urban similarity.
This paper quantifies the rates of return of different agricultural inputs, and studies whether labour and fertilizers are substitutes complements. The study uses detailed farm level data based on the survey conducted by the International Food Policy Research Institute and Bangladesh Institute of Development Studies, covering sixteen villages in 1981-82. Different definitions of substitutes and complements are used. We find that the use of a price definition for classifying inputs as substitutes and complements is not possible when some of the inputs are not purchased in a market place. On the basis of a quantity definition,(fishers) fertilizer and labour are complements.
In a traditional society like Pakistan where the role of women in the family and the society is largely predetermined, it is interesting ti investigate the relevance of the standard Becker Mincer type of human capital model. First a probit function has been estimated to analyse the factors which influence the decision to participate in the labour force, then an earnings functions is estimated in terms of human capital endowments and other family characteristics.
Due to lack well-developed financial market and the Islamic prohibition of a predetermined interest rate,one can expect the opportunity cost of holding money in Saudi Arabia and some developing countries to be captured mainly by the inflation rate and some measures of external monetary and financial factors. The demand for money function developed here takes into consideration the effect of such factors. The empirical results of the estimated money equation for Saudi Arabia suggest that an increase in real income tends to increase the demand for money but, high inflation rates tend to lower it. The empirical evidence also indicated that foreign interest rates and exchange rate variation have a effect in the Saudi money demand function.