MANAGEMENT SCIENCES

Efficiency of resource allocation in agriculture depends on the functioning of commodity markets. Although the larger markets that are better connected with the transport and communication network are expected to be well-integrated, the same cannot be said about the smaller, more remote markets. This paper tests integration of agricultural commodity markets in Southeastern Punjab. The region is located off the main trading axis of Pakistan, the Peshawar-Karachi highway, and is mostly served by relatively small markets known as mandis. This study focuses on markets for cotton, wheat, and rice in five towns in the region. Cotton and wheat are the main crops in the area while rice is mostly grown as part of crop rotation aimed at controlling salinity. The analytical framework developed by Ravallion was used to conduct tests of market integration for the three selected commodities. Within this framework, it is possible to test for short-run integration, long-run integration or complete market segmentation. The results indicate that, generally, markets are integrated only in the long run, with short-run integration limited to some special cases. Moreover, the smaller markets are more likely to be isolated as compared to the larger markets. The small markets also take longer to fully adjust to the price shock originating from a more dominant central market. Finally, in the case of rice, it is more likely that a market would be isolated if it were small. This implies that farmers' incentives to grow rice as a means of combating salinity may be constrained by local demand conditions.

A forward looking monetary policy rule has been estimated for the time period from 1991 to 2010 for Pakistan, an emerging economy. The estimated model explains a very clear shift in monetary policy objective across the sample period. State Bank of Pakistan, from 2000 onwards, seems to take insufficient measures for curtaining inflationary pressure. We also simulate a new Keynesian model to investigate the impact of such monetary policies. We show that policies in near past had a destabilizing effect on economy.

We estimate both a forward looking and a hybrid New Keynesian Phillips Curve using Generalized Method of Moments (GMM).the findings suggest that inflation is persistent phenomenon in Pakistan and past inflation is having significant explanatory power. Contrary to conventional wisdom, the output gap is not statistically significant in explaining inflation in Pakistan. We also analyze the change in inflation dynamics across time. Results are robust when different proxies are used for output gap. It can be concluded that inflation is both backward looking and forward looking in Pakistan.

The paper focuses on Idara-e-Kissan, a vertically integrated cooperative in the dairy sector, which procures fresh milk, processes it and uses the profits earned in urban milk product markets to provide development services to member farmers. The analysis suggests that, compared to a control group of non-members, the cooperative's members had 29% higher net returns per milk animal, 9% more milk buffaloes, 6% fewer dry buffaloes and they used three times more milk fat-enhancing cottonseed cake. The members had better access to animal vaccination, artificial insemination, and visits from livestock extension workers; they were able to secure more animal treatments per year, and reported greater satisfaction with service provision. The cooperative's successes were more modest in areas where the benefits of inputs and services provided were more public, e.g. livestock breed improvement and enhancing fodder productivity, indicating that there is an important role for the government in supplying public goods such as livestock/agriculture R&D. JEL Classification: L66, Q12, Q16, Q18 1 The traditional milk collector who goes from door to door collects the milk and sells it to other consumers in the village, nearby town, or to milk shops or beoparis/dodhis from the town. 2 Village milk collector, a term popularized by commercial milk collectors such as Nestle, Idara-e-Kissan and others, refers to the person collecting milk from farmers on their behalf. The VMC does not go from door to door but maintains a fixed place in the village where the individual farmers bring their milk.

The main objective of this study is to investigate how access to modern marketing channels impacts the efficiency of dairy enterprises. Using data on dairy farms in central Punjab (Sargodha), we carry out a nonparametric data envelopment analysis to measure their technical and scale efficiencies. The results show that, for the sample dairy enterprises, the mean technical efficiency under variable returns to scale was 0.89 while scale efficiency was 0.94. The results of a follow-on regression analysis support the hypothesis that the access to modern marketing channels, where payment for fresh milk is based on measured milk quality (fat content), improved efficiency. We find that efficiency is positively affected by the size of dairy operations, and negatively by the size of operational land area. Moreover, dairy enterprises with smaller herds tend to operate at a suboptimal scale, possibly due to credit and/or land constraints.

Community empowerment and sustainable development reforms, with its emphasis
on rewarding quality and cutting costs, could change the landscape of howrural communities
can achieve the quality of life in the developing countries like Pakistan. The paper explores
the relationship between community empowerment, sense of community and sustainability
of community-driven (CD) projects. Starting from the experience of CD organizations (i.e.
the Citizen Community Boards in Pakistan), the paper attempts to answer two questions: (i) is
there a relationship between community empowerment and project sustainability; (ii) is this
relationship between community empowerment and project sustainability mitigated by the
sense of community? and (iii) to determine the impact of community empowerment through
the moderating role of sense of community on sustainability of CD projects. Furthermore,
paper elaborates on the concepts of “community empowerment”, “sustainability” and “sense
of community”. A hierarchical regression analysis is used to test the relationship between
community empowerment and sustainability of CD projects. This analysis highlights the
central role of the sense of community in mitigating the relationship between community
empowerment and sustainability. Community empowerment is significantly related to the
sense of community and helping communities in improving the quality of their lives.

The Governance and development practitioners discourse continues to embrace
community participation and community empowerment as an elementary means of building
local capacity towards improving quality of life, poverty reduction, development and
change at local level. This article illustrates a review of decentralization initiative of local
government system after announcement of devolution plan in Pakistan and appraises its
participatory methods to ascertain how far they have improved the process of community
development at local level. This article also measure the impact of community empowerment
on the sustainability of community driven projects implemented under decentralization initiatives
through community based organizations called Citizen Community Board’s (CCB’s).
The results acknowledge the human development and improvement in community empowerment
and sustainability of projects at local but yet sense of community and shared benefits
to be translated for rural communities. The fundamental goal of decentralization seems to
be elusive as only power was transferred at local level, whereby there is less support for
community capacity building, community access to resources, still there is elite holding
over the electoral process. It is argued that community development initiatives in Pakistan
require continues support from local government to boost local rural economies. Likewise,
community-local government participatory development strategies can attain strong local
ownership and empowerment among rural communities.