Mohammad Hasan
MS-ECM
(2022)

Research Topic: Effect of siblings' size, birth order and sibling sex composition on school attainment in Pakistan

Children lower school attainment is deemed as a potential hurdle to economic development in lower middle-income countries, including Pakistan. Previous studies have analyzed all possible factors contributing to lower school attainment in Pakistan, without giving due consideration to appropriately identified causal framework.

Therefore, this study makes the first attempt to identify a causal framework, for analyzing the relationship between schooling attainment, and sibling size and its composition, and birth order. The primary school completion is set as the benchmark of school attainment as it occupies the central place in any education system, on the leverage of which, higher education attainment and consequently human capital accumulation becomes possible in the long run. The study will extract the data on school attainment, birth order, gender, and sibling size from the Household Integrated Expenditure Survey, HIES— 2018-19. The study follows a theoretical framework established somewhere else and employs an instrumental variable approach to analyze the casual effect of siblings' size on child's primary school completion. Gender of the first child will be used as the instrument for sibling's size. The effect of birth order on child school attainment will be examined for different sibling sizes separately to address the possible confounding effect of birth order with siblings' size. Further, following the literature on discriminatory treatment of girls in Pakistani society by their parents, the former of which are severely restricted in terms of opportunities; this study will examine the heterogeneous treatment of a child given its gender and the gender of its siblings. The study expects negative effect of the greater proportion of male to female siblings in the family on girl's school attainment. Besides, this study anticipates negative effect of having first (and second born) as boy (s) on the school attainment of last-born girl.

Faran Waleed
MS- ECM
(2022)

Research Topic: Impact of Spouse's education on female role in intra-household decision-making in Pakistan

Main purpose of this research is to conduct an empirical analysis of the impact of male educational attainment on his life partner's role in intra-household decision-making.

This research paper analyze decision pertaining to family planning and to expenditures on clothing, recreation, medical cost and food. For empirical analysis, data taken from Pakistan Social and Living Standard Measurement Survey for 2018-19 using Linear Probability Model with household fixed effects. In order to tackle the issue of reverse causality between education and female empowerment in decision-making, the study uses distance to school as an instrument for education.

Probable results: The relationship between male education and female role in household decision-making would be significant and positively correlated, with increase in male educational attainments role of female in intra-household decision-making also increases.

Syed Moosa Raza
Bs Economics and Mathematics
(2022)

Abdul Ghaffar
Bs Economics and Mathematics
(2022)

Research Topic: Trends in income inequality and poverty in Pakistan

This paper studies the trends in income inequality in Pakistan. It made use of diverse indices to deduce poverty level, poverty line, and income inequality. The rationale behind using different indices was to reduce the impact of shortcomings and limitations within an index and to reach a common conclusion. The research involved data from two different time periods under different political regimes. In this way, the study was also able to explore the impact of political changes on poverty and income inequality. The data was sourced through PSLM and was therefore, secondary data.

Our motivation behind this paper piqued from the interest we hold in subjects such as economic development, policy sector, and educational development. We are passionate about deriving actionable insights and solutions to complex problems while involving econometric techniques. We have a believe that, Pakistan's living standards are questionable in current economic instability and deriving insights from the previous trends would help in structured policy making.

Filzah Sardar
MS- ECM
(2022)

Research Topic: Household catastrophic health expenditures on communicable and non-communicable diseases and impoverishment in Pakistan

In Pakistan, out-of-pocket (OOP) health expenditure is a major source of healthcare financing. In case of multiple chronic diseases, these out-of-pocket health expenditures might reach catastrophic proportions inflicting an acute financial burden on households.

Given this backdrop, this study aims twofold: to examine the CHE on communicable diseases (CDs) and non-communicable diseases (NCDs) and measure its impoverishment effects in Pakistan. The study will employ the Household Integrated Economic Survey (HIES, 2018-2019) and National Health Accounts Data Set. Using the capacity to pay approach, the study will compute proportion of households with OOP payments, including inpatient and outpatient treatment, above 20% of non-food expenditure to determine CHE prevalence. For CHE sensitivity analysis, a range of thresholds (10% to 40%) will be used. The Mean Overshoot will be calculated to determine the severity of the catastrophic payments on CDs and NCDs. Using Pakistan's official poverty line, the impoverishing effects of OOP expenditure will be estimated for CD and NCDs separately. Finally, the Multivariate Logistic regression will be employed to analyze the impacts of various factors on CHE for CDs and NCDs separately. It is anticipated that a significant proportion of households would experience CHE. The CHE on CDs and NCDs would increase the incidence the poverty, and more likely deepen it.

Mariam Tameezuddin
MS- ECM
(2022)

Research Topic: Determinants of Domestic Violence in Pakistan

Domestic abuse is defined as physical sexual, and financial violence. The paper aims to see the drivers of domestic violence on women in Pakistan and their comparison with the drivers of SAARC countries. The main contribution is to check the occurrence of domestic violence across culture and provinces, and we can see varied results.

My motivation behind this study is the rising domestic abuse in Pakistan, followed by rejection in the domestic violence protection act. Exploring factors that significantly affect domestic violence in Pakistan and hence the measures that can be taken to control the rising abuse.