PIDE Reveal Average Revenue Of Street Vendor Rs 114,708

The Pakistan Institute of Development Economics (PIDE) on Tuesday revealed that average revenue of street vendors is Rs 114,708, 29% of which is profit

ISLAMABAD, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 29th Mar, 2022 ) :The Pakistan Institute of Development Economics (PIDE) on Tuesday revealed that average revenue of street vendors is Rs 114,708, 29% of which is profit.

Formal markets also get a positive spill-over effect from the traffic attracted by the street vendors.

The study recommends that strong linkages are necessary for substantial gains, said a press release issued here.

Pakistan Institute of Development Economics (PIDE), under its Research for Social Transformation and Advancement' (RASTA) program concluded its first-ever RASTA conference held at Pearl Continental Bhurban.

The research moot comprised diverse research themes, including energy issues, urban development, technology, and public service delivery, social sector development, markets and regulation, the political economy of development and reform, and sludge - the administrative burden.

In his concluding remarks, Dr. Nadeem ul Haque, Vice-Chancellor PIDE and Chairman RASTA Research Advisory Committee (RAC), said that the RASTA is an evolutionary process.

"Our local researchers and academics must conduct local research and find local solutions to our local problems" he said.

He said that "we can follow global research but it has to be adopted as per our local needs and requirements." Dr. Haque said that there is no looking back; we must only look forward to progress. We have already put enough ideas on the table for policymakers. Hope the policy corridors would take notice of it, the VC added.

He further said that local flavor to the research is all that we need. RASTA has researchers from across the country. At the first PIDE-RASTA Conference, we heard things we had never heard before.

Earlier during the session, Dr. Anwar Shah, Associate Professor at Quaid-i-Azam University, Islamabad presented his paper on 'Informal Markets and Competition: An Analysis of Barriers to Entry of Legal Framework and Behavioral Attitude towards Khokha Markets in Pakistan'.

Dr. Shah opened his talk by saying that Khokas (small vendor shops) is one of the key segments of the informal economy in Pakistan.

Khokas provide jobs to many people and facilitate consumers in doing various types of transactions. However, entry to barriers put a bar on such access, leading to inefficiencies.

The elimination of barriers to entry is important for promoting competition in the market and enhancing the welfare of people.

Researchers Umar Ijaz Gillani presented his research on 'Regulatory Environment of the Professions in Pakistan: It is titled as "Revitalization of Street economy in Pakistan: The Case of Islamabad".

The study explores the legal and economic dynamics of Street Economy (SE) in Islamabad Capital Territory (ICT).

Pakistan has a large SE operated by individuals and micro-enterprises across the country, mostly in urban areas.

There are no precise estimates on the quantum of SE due to the informal nature in Pakistan.

It is vital to gauge the contribution of SE in the overall economic landscape of the country due to the overwhelming involvement of individuals and micro-enterprises.

This analysis helps to bring hidden employment and economic contribution to the national statistics.

Dr. Ahmed Waqar Qasim presented the findings of his unique study, titled 'Sludge: The Administrative Burden'. First of all he defined the term sludge.

Unjustified frictions that make it difficult for the people to achieve what they want, frictions that make processes unnecessary difficult, and unwarranted interaction between citizens and public institutions all come under the definition of sludge.

The examples may include complicated application processes, duplicative paperwork, and various attestations and so on.

PIDE, for the first time in Pakistan attempted to quantify sludge through time consumed, cost involved and psychological cost. The figure is mind-boggling. PIDE's sludge report says that in various sectors, sludge at the national level costs Pakistan 39% of its GDP.

During the third and last session on the second day of the RASTA Conference, four papers were presented under the theme Political Economy of Development and Reform. The details are as below: Dr. Faiz Ur Rehman presented his paper on "Political Dynasties and Local Economic Development in Pakistan', co-authored by Noman Ahmad and Muhammad Nasir. Dr. Faiz started his presentation by saying that despite the considerable attention paid by previous governments to the underdeveloped regions, intra-regional economic disparities are on the rise in Pakistan. While there can be several reasons for exasperating inter-regional inequality across regions, political institutions and politicians may explain a significant size of this inequality. Politicians exercise considerable de facto political power to redirect resources towards their regions which has a substantial cost for least developed regions.

Pakistan is among those countries where the share of elected political dynasties in parliament is one of the highest in the world.

It represents more than 50 percent of elected legislature since 1970, he shared with the audience.

2008 onwards, the debate on the subject intensified on many levels, but little evidence or research was ever presented.

Their study explored the impact of dynastic persistence on local development and public service provisioning.

The findings suggest that Constituencies with non-dynasts winners perform better than the dynast winners in terms of local economic development.

The potential reason for the worse performance of dynasts could be associated with lower political participation, besides other factors.

The authors suggests abolishing discretionary funds and minimizing the influence of legislators over PSDP spending can be an effective deterrent to cut down the divergence between the performance of dynasts and non-dynasts.