Factor Utilisation in Manufacturing: Evidence from Pakistan

Sahar Amjad Shaikh and Bisma Haseeb Khan
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Sahar Amjad Shaikh: Centre for Research in Economics and Business, Lahore School of Economics, Lahore
Bisma Haseeb Khan: Centre for Research in Economics and Business, Lahore School of Economics, Lahore

The Pakistan Development Review, 2011, vol. 50, issue 4, 515-529

Abstract: During the past decade, Pakistan has experienced jobless growth with the employment growth in its manufacturing sector lagging behind the growth in its GDP. This is of concern as Pakistan‘s growing labour force, lacking social safety nets and financial assets, rely on employment as their sole source of income. Thus employment is the main link between economic growth and poverty reduction. This paper aims to investigate the nature of this job-less growth by using the Levinsohn and Petrin (2003) methodology to estimate the production functions for the industries and calculate the rate of factor utilisation in the manufacturing sector. Our hypothesis is that labour underutilisation may be one of the driving factors behind this jobless growth. Finding lower than optimal employment for production and non-production workers across different industries, it further tries to establish the possible links between factor utilisation, productivity and other institutional characteristics of the firm. Policy recommendations are made on the basis of this analysis.

Keywords: Manufacturing; Pakistan; Labour; Panel Data; Production Function (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C23 D24 J20 L60 O53 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2011
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