Faisal Abbas | National University of Sciences and Technology Islamabad (original) (raw)

Papers by Faisal Abbas

The Pakistan Development Review, 2007

Productivity is closely associated with direct and indirect use of energy as an input. The import... more Productivity is closely associated with direct and indirect use of energy as an input. The importance of energy can not be denied as one of the basic inputs to economic growth process. The consumption of energy has been among the critical indicators of the level of development of any country. It is observed that usually the developed countries use more energy per unit of economic output and far more energy per capita than developing countries. This reflects the adoption of increasingly more efficient technologies for energy production and utilisation as well as changes in the composition of economic activities. This, largely, needs a shift in energy use [Cheng and Lai (1997)]. When this shift in the composition of final energy use is taken into account energy use and the level of economic activity are found to be tightly coupled. The prospect of large reduction in the energy use intensity of economic activity seems limited. So, the accelerated demand results in the scarcity of energ...

Regional market integration in many agricultural commodities has been extensively studied for the... more Regional market integration in many agricultural commodities has been extensively studied for the insight it provides into the functioning of such markets; such studies provide valuable information about the dynamics of market adjustments, and whether there exist market imperfections, which may justify government intervention. This study used Monthly wholesale prices (Rs. /40 kg) data from January 1995 to December 2003 of Basmati Rice (108 observations) in logarithmic form and empirically estimated the degree of integration in Rice (Basmati) markets of Pakistan's Punjab using the law of one price (LOP) framework and cointegration analysis. Cointegration Results show that all Rice markets are highly integrated in the long run. The high degree of market integration observed in this case is consistent with the view that Punjab's Rice markets are quite competitive and provide little justification for extensive and costly government intervention designed to improve competitiveness to enhance market efficiency.

This study describes the macroeconomic determinants of health care spending in a broad context us... more This study describes the macroeconomic determinants of health care spending in a broad context using time series data from Pakistan on economic, demographic, social, and political variables. The data spans a period from 1972- 2006 and was analyzed using cointegration and error correction approaches. All variables were found to be first difference stationary and the results confirm the presence of one cointegrating vector. This proves the existence of a long-run relationship between public health care expenditures and the other variables used in the model. The income elasticity of public health care expenditures is estimated at 0.23. As this value is less than unity it suggests that, contrary to most of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries health care qualifies as a necessity in Pakistan. Urbanization and unemployment are variables that have a negative effect on health care expenditures, with elasticity values of -1.29 and –0.32 respectively, im...

BMJ Open, 2022

ObjectivesThis study analysed the association between breast feeding (BF) and birth interval (BI)... more ObjectivesThis study analysed the association between breast feeding (BF) and birth interval (BI) (both succeeding and preceding) with neonatal mortality (NM), infant mortality (IM) and under-5 mortality (U5M).DesignThis cross-sectional study used data from the Pakistan Demographic and Health Survey 2017–2018.SettingsAll provinces, Islamabad and Federally Administered Tribal Areas were included in the analysis.ParticipantsA total of 12 769 children born to ever-married multiparous women aged 30–49 years who gave live birth within 5 years preceding the interview. Multiple births are not included.Data analysisMultivariate logistic regression analysis was used.ResultsWe found that BF was associated with nearly 98% lower risk of NM (OR 0.015; 95% CI: 0.01 to 0.03; p<0.001), 96% lower risk of IM (OR 0.038; 95% CI: 0.02 to 0.06; p<0.001) and 94% lower risk of U5M (OR 0.050; 95% CI: 0.03 to 0.08; p<0.001). Compared with optimal preceding birth interval (PBI) (36+ months), short PB...

Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, 2022

Scientific Reports, 2021

Low Birth Weight (LBW) is considered as a major public health issue and leading cause of neonatal... more Low Birth Weight (LBW) is considered as a major public health issue and leading cause of neonatal death. Almost one in four newborns are reported as underweight in Pakistan. Children born with low birth weight are highly vulnerable to develop diseases and death and/or remain undernourished (i.e., stunted and wasted). This study determines the LBW newborns are more prone to develop stunting and wasting in province of Sindh, Pakistan. Moreover, regression-based estimation of the impact of LBW on the child health outcomes of under five years of age, may be prone to selection bias because of the nature of non-experimental data set, thus, propensity score matching methods are used in this study. Data for this study was used from Multiple Indicators Cluster Survey (MICS-2014). MICS is a two-stage, stratified cluster sampling household level data covering urban and rural areas and consists of 19,500 households from five administrative divisions and 28 districts of Sindh province of Pakista...

Sexual & Reproductive Healthcare, 2020

OBJECTIVE This paper aims at estimating the long-term trends of facility-based and home-based del... more OBJECTIVE This paper aims at estimating the long-term trends of facility-based and home-based deliveries and identifies the factors associated with the choice of delivery site. STUDY DESIGN Secondary analysis evaluating the trends in the choice of the delivery site by women of reproductive age using Pakistan Demographic and Health Surveys from 1990-91 to 2017-18. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES The main outcome measure of this study is the choice of delivery site. METHOD This study used data from four waves of Pakistan Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS) corresponding with 1990-91, 2006, 2012-13 and 2017-18. Logistic regression was used for empirical analysis. RESULTS The odds of home delivery significantly came down in 2017-18 relative to 1990-91 (OR = 0.09; 95% CI:0.08-0.12; P < 0.001), growth in the likelihood of institutional delivery shows wide disparities. While the odds of delivery at the public health facility nearly doubled from 1990 to 91 to 2017-18 (OR = 2.12; 95% CI:1.70-2.65; P < 0.001), the odds of delivery at the private health facilities in the same period increased nearly eight times (OR = 7.78; 95% CI:6.45-9.38; P < 0.001). CONCLUSION Results suggest an investment gap in public health facilities and an inequitable health care system in Pakistan.

Background : Pakistan is facing an acute problem of child under-nutrition as about 38 percent of ... more Background : Pakistan is facing an acute problem of child under-nutrition as about 38 percent of children in Pakistan are stunted. Punjab, the largest province by population and GDP share having stunting prevalence of about 33.5 percent moderately and 13.3 percent severely stunted children of less than five years. Thus, this study aims at examining empirically the determinants of stunting (moderate and severe) at different level of hierarchy. Methodology : Data for this study is coming from Punjab Multiple Indicators Cluster Survey (MICS-2014). MICS uses two-stage, stratified cluster sampling approach. MICS is sub national level (Punjab province) data covering urban and rural areas. The data consists of 25,067 children under five, for 9 administrative divisions and 36 districts of Punjab province of Pakistan. Descriptive statistics and multilevel hierarchical models were estimated. Multilevel data analyses has advantage because it provides robust standard error estimates and helps i...

Economic Change and Restructuring, 2017

The human capital and physical capital are inextricably linked. Increase in the physical capital ... more The human capital and physical capital are inextricably linked. Increase in the physical capital is assumed to affect the stock of human capital and vice versa. This paper examines the impact of increase in human capital on accumulation of physical capital and vice versa for a panel of 237 countries during the period 1971-2015. We also analyzed the interaction between these two types of capitals after disaggregating the countries by their income level. We used 3SLS and fixed effects estimation methods to obtain consistent and unbiased results in the presence of endogeneity. We found that investment in physical capital positively affects accumulation of human capital, but the impact of human capital investment on physical capital accumulation is not uniform. The impact of additional factors such as democracy, trade openness and ethnic fractionalization on human and physical capital is moderated by level of economic development of the countries. Results suggest that in order to accumulate physical capital subject to the resource constraints, low income countries must focus largely on primary education while high income countries should invest in secondary and more importantly in tertiary levels of education.

Eastern Mediterranean Health Journal, 2018

especially in developing countries (5). As a reference, the World Health Organization, in its 198... more especially in developing countries (5). As a reference, the World Health Organization, in its 1985 report, suggested an optimal range for C-section rates of 5-15% (6). Many studies have found that the likelihood of delivery through C-section depends on a number of institutional, demographic and socioeconomic factors. The availability of facilities, obstetricians and the place of birth, that is, private or public sector institutions, is associated with C-section rate (7,8). C-section is significantly associated with multiple conception, maternal age at birth, rise in institutional deliveries, number of previous deliveries, site of prenatal care (private or public), socioeconomic status of household and access to antenatal care (9-11). Some maternal characteristics such as education and access to antenatal care are also strongly associated with the likelihood of C-section (4,10,12). In view of the recent understanding about the factors associated with C-section, this study identified a set of socioeconomic, demographic, spatial and institutional indicators associated with C-section delivery. We used data from the Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey (MICS)

Social Indicators Research, 2017

JPMA. The Journal of the Pakistan Medical Association, 2017

To identify the socio-economic determinants of home-based and institutional delivery in Pakistan.... more To identify the socio-economic determinants of home-based and institutional delivery in Pakistan. This study has used Pakistan Demographic and Health Survey (PDHS) data collected by the National Institute of Population Studies (NIPS), Islamabad, Pakistan, and Macro International Inc. (now ICF International) Calverton, Maryland, United States. It used three episodes of Pakistan Demographic and Health Survey Data from 1990-91, 2006-07 and 2012-13. Data was analysed using descriptive analysis and odds of delivering at hospital were calculated using logistic regression analysis. Home-based delivery was over 4 times higher in 1990-91 compared with institutional delivery 5,465(85.3%) vs. 852(13.3%), and around 2 times higher in 2006-07 5,900(64.7%) vs. 3,128(34.3%). However, in 2012-13, the share of women delivering at home or health facility was roughly the same, i.e. 6,180(51.6%) at home and 5,773(48.2%) at health facility. There were wide gaps in the rates of institutional delivery amo...

Journal of Policy Modeling, 2017

This paper employs GMM method to examine the impact of macroeconomic, financial and political fac... more This paper employs GMM method to examine the impact of macroeconomic, financial and political factors on remittances to Pakistan using data spanning 1972-2012. It is estimated that inflation has significant and inverse relation with remittances indicating less investment by diaspora due to unstable macroeconomic conditions. The dummy variable of 2001 terrorist attacks has significantly positive impact on remittances. Furthermore, financial liberalization index is negatively related to remittances as it increases peoples' access to loans. Furthermore, democracy induces migrants to remit to their homes. The findings of this study points toward the substantial impact of economic and noneconomic variables on remittances.

Social Indicators Research, 2017

This paper empirically examines factors related to social, economic, demographic and health care ... more This paper empirically examines factors related to social, economic, demographic and health care services that affect health status in Pakistan. The analysis is conducted using ARDL bound testing approach on annual data ranging from 1960 to 2014. It is estimated that health spending has a significant impact on health status, specifically, development health spending and income are robust predictors of health status for the population in Pakistan and is seen to affect female life expectancy positively in both the short and in long run, however, it is important to note that the impact of income per capita is relatively stronger than that of public health spending. Total fertility rate (fr) appears to have a significant effect on child mortality rate (cmr) with a negative sign both in the short and in long-run. This result is especially important for developing countries like Pakistan where population growth is high and infant deaths are frequent. Bidirectional causality exists between infant and child mortality and fertility rate; these results are supported by the modern economic theory of population. The effect of medical personnel availability on health status, particularly in reducing infant and child mortality, remains statistically nonsignificant despite the bidirectional causal relationship between this variable and the infant and child mortality. Nutrition appears to be causally related to life expectancy and child mortality. Thus, it is important for the Government of Pakistan to design its policies based on the development targets in addition to the growth targets that have been set in place for the country.

Journal of Health Management, 2014

This article aims at exploring and analyzing reasons for the spread of dengue outbreak in Lahore,... more This article aims at exploring and analyzing reasons for the spread of dengue outbreak in Lahore, Pakistan, in 2011. This led to about 300 deaths. Also, this study intends to review the appropriateness of government response in managing the dengue outbreak. The contributing factors in the spread of dengue disease included, among others, the demographic structure of Lahore district, environmental conditions, and urbanization and slum development with lack of health facilities. Furthermore, managerial and coordination failures at the level of city district government aggravated the situation. The governance failure was manifested by the non-framing of dengue disease as a public policy concern, especially when it had affected almost 4,500 persons leading to three deaths in the year 2010. There were coordination failures with tertiary level health institutions, and the city government was unprepared. Concrete and effective steps were taken when chief minister of the Punjab province inte...

Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, 2017

were initiated by Water and Power Development Authority (WAPDA) in 2003 and completed with an ave... more were initiated by Water and Power Development Authority (WAPDA) in 2003 and completed with an average time overrun of 200% and incurred 2.5 times more cost than originally estimated. Study of project documents, interviews from experts highlighted the critical reasons for these costly delays. These reasons were rated and ranked by all three parties of hydro power projects i.e. Client, consultant and contractor on Relative Frequency Index, Relative Severity Index and Independent Relative Importance Index through questionnaire survey. Most of the respondents agreed that "lack of political will, delay in civil work, delays in release of funds by the Government, bad Law and order situation, project start without proper site investigation and poor project time management are the leading reasons behind delays of these Hydro Power projects. These results would be helpful for policy makers and implementing agencies in better planning and mitigating the delay effects in future projects.

Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, 2016

This paper examines the dynamics of electricity demand in Pakistan at the aggregate and sectoral ... more This paper examines the dynamics of electricity demand in Pakistan at the aggregate and sectoral levels over the period 1978-2012. Panel cointegration test and Fully Modified Ordinary Least Squares method is employed to determine the long run relationship between electricity consumption, real income, real price of electricity and domestic price of non-energy products. The results reveal that electricity demand is more responsive to changes in income than changes in prices at the aggregate and disaggregate levels. Short run and long run income elasticities are positive and statistically significant, supporting the conservation hypothesis. It appears from the results that long run price elasticities are negative and significant at the aggregate level and for the agriculture, commercial, residential sectors and public utilities. The short run price elasticities are significant but low in magnitude, which implies that changes in electricity price exert minimal effect on the electricity consumption in Pakistan. The domestic price of non-energy products is positive and significant for aggregate sample in the short run, the domestic price of non-energy products exert significant negative (positive) impact on electricity demand in the agriculture (industrial) sectors. The results, thus, provide important information to the agents operating in the electricity market regarding the income and pricing policies and helps in planning the future strategy of electricity demand management.

JPMA. The Journal of the Pakistan Medical Association, 2016

To determine patients' perception regarding service and quality of healthcare at public-secto... more To determine patients' perception regarding service and quality of healthcare at public-sector institutions. The descriptive quantitative study was conducted in Kohat district, Pakistan, between July and December 2014, and focussed on 30 variables to assess the participants' perceptions of the actual healthcare service quality delivered. SERVQUAL instrument was used to measure the reliability and cronbach alpha was calculated to measure the reliability and validity of the instrument. A total of 200 questionnaires were distributed and 157(78.5%) were received back fully filled. Of them, 105(67%) were men and 52(33%) were women.The mean value of Assurance parameter was 3.05±0.88, indicating trust in public hospitals was high as they had experienced and capable doctors. On the other hand, the lowest mean value of 2.61±0.84 was for Empathy, highlighting the fact that public hospitals lacked the ability to handle patients' problem properly, services were not offered in time a...

Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, 2015

This paper aims at exploring the finance-growth-energy nexus for Pakistan over the 1972-2012 peri... more This paper aims at exploring the finance-growth-energy nexus for Pakistan over the 1972-2012 period. By employing the system GMM estimation technique, the study tries to capture the impact of financial development over energy consumption through economic growth channel and includes energy prices and urbanization in the structural model. The study finds positive and significant impact of economic growth and urbanization on energy consumption, while the effect of energy prices over energy consumption is significant but negative. Financial development positively and significantly affects energy consumption through the economic growth channel. Our analysis is important for policy makers for effective energy demand planning and conservation policies that would ensure sustainable economic development as well as serve as motivation to search alternative energy sources to meet the bourgeoning energy demand in Pakistan.

Nature, 2010

Marine stewardship: catalysing change Criticisms that the Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) progra... more Marine stewardship: catalysing change Criticisms that the Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) programme is not delivering on its promise (Nature 467, 28-29 and 531; 2010) are misplaced. After ten years of operation, the

The Pakistan Development Review, 2007

Productivity is closely associated with direct and indirect use of energy as an input. The import... more Productivity is closely associated with direct and indirect use of energy as an input. The importance of energy can not be denied as one of the basic inputs to economic growth process. The consumption of energy has been among the critical indicators of the level of development of any country. It is observed that usually the developed countries use more energy per unit of economic output and far more energy per capita than developing countries. This reflects the adoption of increasingly more efficient technologies for energy production and utilisation as well as changes in the composition of economic activities. This, largely, needs a shift in energy use [Cheng and Lai (1997)]. When this shift in the composition of final energy use is taken into account energy use and the level of economic activity are found to be tightly coupled. The prospect of large reduction in the energy use intensity of economic activity seems limited. So, the accelerated demand results in the scarcity of energ...

Regional market integration in many agricultural commodities has been extensively studied for the... more Regional market integration in many agricultural commodities has been extensively studied for the insight it provides into the functioning of such markets; such studies provide valuable information about the dynamics of market adjustments, and whether there exist market imperfections, which may justify government intervention. This study used Monthly wholesale prices (Rs. /40 kg) data from January 1995 to December 2003 of Basmati Rice (108 observations) in logarithmic form and empirically estimated the degree of integration in Rice (Basmati) markets of Pakistan's Punjab using the law of one price (LOP) framework and cointegration analysis. Cointegration Results show that all Rice markets are highly integrated in the long run. The high degree of market integration observed in this case is consistent with the view that Punjab's Rice markets are quite competitive and provide little justification for extensive and costly government intervention designed to improve competitiveness to enhance market efficiency.

This study describes the macroeconomic determinants of health care spending in a broad context us... more This study describes the macroeconomic determinants of health care spending in a broad context using time series data from Pakistan on economic, demographic, social, and political variables. The data spans a period from 1972- 2006 and was analyzed using cointegration and error correction approaches. All variables were found to be first difference stationary and the results confirm the presence of one cointegrating vector. This proves the existence of a long-run relationship between public health care expenditures and the other variables used in the model. The income elasticity of public health care expenditures is estimated at 0.23. As this value is less than unity it suggests that, contrary to most of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries health care qualifies as a necessity in Pakistan. Urbanization and unemployment are variables that have a negative effect on health care expenditures, with elasticity values of -1.29 and –0.32 respectively, im...

BMJ Open, 2022

ObjectivesThis study analysed the association between breast feeding (BF) and birth interval (BI)... more ObjectivesThis study analysed the association between breast feeding (BF) and birth interval (BI) (both succeeding and preceding) with neonatal mortality (NM), infant mortality (IM) and under-5 mortality (U5M).DesignThis cross-sectional study used data from the Pakistan Demographic and Health Survey 2017–2018.SettingsAll provinces, Islamabad and Federally Administered Tribal Areas were included in the analysis.ParticipantsA total of 12 769 children born to ever-married multiparous women aged 30–49 years who gave live birth within 5 years preceding the interview. Multiple births are not included.Data analysisMultivariate logistic regression analysis was used.ResultsWe found that BF was associated with nearly 98% lower risk of NM (OR 0.015; 95% CI: 0.01 to 0.03; p<0.001), 96% lower risk of IM (OR 0.038; 95% CI: 0.02 to 0.06; p<0.001) and 94% lower risk of U5M (OR 0.050; 95% CI: 0.03 to 0.08; p<0.001). Compared with optimal preceding birth interval (PBI) (36+ months), short PB...

Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, 2022

Scientific Reports, 2021

Low Birth Weight (LBW) is considered as a major public health issue and leading cause of neonatal... more Low Birth Weight (LBW) is considered as a major public health issue and leading cause of neonatal death. Almost one in four newborns are reported as underweight in Pakistan. Children born with low birth weight are highly vulnerable to develop diseases and death and/or remain undernourished (i.e., stunted and wasted). This study determines the LBW newborns are more prone to develop stunting and wasting in province of Sindh, Pakistan. Moreover, regression-based estimation of the impact of LBW on the child health outcomes of under five years of age, may be prone to selection bias because of the nature of non-experimental data set, thus, propensity score matching methods are used in this study. Data for this study was used from Multiple Indicators Cluster Survey (MICS-2014). MICS is a two-stage, stratified cluster sampling household level data covering urban and rural areas and consists of 19,500 households from five administrative divisions and 28 districts of Sindh province of Pakista...

Sexual & Reproductive Healthcare, 2020

OBJECTIVE This paper aims at estimating the long-term trends of facility-based and home-based del... more OBJECTIVE This paper aims at estimating the long-term trends of facility-based and home-based deliveries and identifies the factors associated with the choice of delivery site. STUDY DESIGN Secondary analysis evaluating the trends in the choice of the delivery site by women of reproductive age using Pakistan Demographic and Health Surveys from 1990-91 to 2017-18. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES The main outcome measure of this study is the choice of delivery site. METHOD This study used data from four waves of Pakistan Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS) corresponding with 1990-91, 2006, 2012-13 and 2017-18. Logistic regression was used for empirical analysis. RESULTS The odds of home delivery significantly came down in 2017-18 relative to 1990-91 (OR = 0.09; 95% CI:0.08-0.12; P < 0.001), growth in the likelihood of institutional delivery shows wide disparities. While the odds of delivery at the public health facility nearly doubled from 1990 to 91 to 2017-18 (OR = 2.12; 95% CI:1.70-2.65; P < 0.001), the odds of delivery at the private health facilities in the same period increased nearly eight times (OR = 7.78; 95% CI:6.45-9.38; P < 0.001). CONCLUSION Results suggest an investment gap in public health facilities and an inequitable health care system in Pakistan.

Background : Pakistan is facing an acute problem of child under-nutrition as about 38 percent of ... more Background : Pakistan is facing an acute problem of child under-nutrition as about 38 percent of children in Pakistan are stunted. Punjab, the largest province by population and GDP share having stunting prevalence of about 33.5 percent moderately and 13.3 percent severely stunted children of less than five years. Thus, this study aims at examining empirically the determinants of stunting (moderate and severe) at different level of hierarchy. Methodology : Data for this study is coming from Punjab Multiple Indicators Cluster Survey (MICS-2014). MICS uses two-stage, stratified cluster sampling approach. MICS is sub national level (Punjab province) data covering urban and rural areas. The data consists of 25,067 children under five, for 9 administrative divisions and 36 districts of Punjab province of Pakistan. Descriptive statistics and multilevel hierarchical models were estimated. Multilevel data analyses has advantage because it provides robust standard error estimates and helps i...

Economic Change and Restructuring, 2017

The human capital and physical capital are inextricably linked. Increase in the physical capital ... more The human capital and physical capital are inextricably linked. Increase in the physical capital is assumed to affect the stock of human capital and vice versa. This paper examines the impact of increase in human capital on accumulation of physical capital and vice versa for a panel of 237 countries during the period 1971-2015. We also analyzed the interaction between these two types of capitals after disaggregating the countries by their income level. We used 3SLS and fixed effects estimation methods to obtain consistent and unbiased results in the presence of endogeneity. We found that investment in physical capital positively affects accumulation of human capital, but the impact of human capital investment on physical capital accumulation is not uniform. The impact of additional factors such as democracy, trade openness and ethnic fractionalization on human and physical capital is moderated by level of economic development of the countries. Results suggest that in order to accumulate physical capital subject to the resource constraints, low income countries must focus largely on primary education while high income countries should invest in secondary and more importantly in tertiary levels of education.

Eastern Mediterranean Health Journal, 2018

especially in developing countries (5). As a reference, the World Health Organization, in its 198... more especially in developing countries (5). As a reference, the World Health Organization, in its 1985 report, suggested an optimal range for C-section rates of 5-15% (6). Many studies have found that the likelihood of delivery through C-section depends on a number of institutional, demographic and socioeconomic factors. The availability of facilities, obstetricians and the place of birth, that is, private or public sector institutions, is associated with C-section rate (7,8). C-section is significantly associated with multiple conception, maternal age at birth, rise in institutional deliveries, number of previous deliveries, site of prenatal care (private or public), socioeconomic status of household and access to antenatal care (9-11). Some maternal characteristics such as education and access to antenatal care are also strongly associated with the likelihood of C-section (4,10,12). In view of the recent understanding about the factors associated with C-section, this study identified a set of socioeconomic, demographic, spatial and institutional indicators associated with C-section delivery. We used data from the Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey (MICS)

Social Indicators Research, 2017

JPMA. The Journal of the Pakistan Medical Association, 2017

To identify the socio-economic determinants of home-based and institutional delivery in Pakistan.... more To identify the socio-economic determinants of home-based and institutional delivery in Pakistan. This study has used Pakistan Demographic and Health Survey (PDHS) data collected by the National Institute of Population Studies (NIPS), Islamabad, Pakistan, and Macro International Inc. (now ICF International) Calverton, Maryland, United States. It used three episodes of Pakistan Demographic and Health Survey Data from 1990-91, 2006-07 and 2012-13. Data was analysed using descriptive analysis and odds of delivering at hospital were calculated using logistic regression analysis. Home-based delivery was over 4 times higher in 1990-91 compared with institutional delivery 5,465(85.3%) vs. 852(13.3%), and around 2 times higher in 2006-07 5,900(64.7%) vs. 3,128(34.3%). However, in 2012-13, the share of women delivering at home or health facility was roughly the same, i.e. 6,180(51.6%) at home and 5,773(48.2%) at health facility. There were wide gaps in the rates of institutional delivery amo...

Journal of Policy Modeling, 2017

This paper employs GMM method to examine the impact of macroeconomic, financial and political fac... more This paper employs GMM method to examine the impact of macroeconomic, financial and political factors on remittances to Pakistan using data spanning 1972-2012. It is estimated that inflation has significant and inverse relation with remittances indicating less investment by diaspora due to unstable macroeconomic conditions. The dummy variable of 2001 terrorist attacks has significantly positive impact on remittances. Furthermore, financial liberalization index is negatively related to remittances as it increases peoples' access to loans. Furthermore, democracy induces migrants to remit to their homes. The findings of this study points toward the substantial impact of economic and noneconomic variables on remittances.

Social Indicators Research, 2017

This paper empirically examines factors related to social, economic, demographic and health care ... more This paper empirically examines factors related to social, economic, demographic and health care services that affect health status in Pakistan. The analysis is conducted using ARDL bound testing approach on annual data ranging from 1960 to 2014. It is estimated that health spending has a significant impact on health status, specifically, development health spending and income are robust predictors of health status for the population in Pakistan and is seen to affect female life expectancy positively in both the short and in long run, however, it is important to note that the impact of income per capita is relatively stronger than that of public health spending. Total fertility rate (fr) appears to have a significant effect on child mortality rate (cmr) with a negative sign both in the short and in long-run. This result is especially important for developing countries like Pakistan where population growth is high and infant deaths are frequent. Bidirectional causality exists between infant and child mortality and fertility rate; these results are supported by the modern economic theory of population. The effect of medical personnel availability on health status, particularly in reducing infant and child mortality, remains statistically nonsignificant despite the bidirectional causal relationship between this variable and the infant and child mortality. Nutrition appears to be causally related to life expectancy and child mortality. Thus, it is important for the Government of Pakistan to design its policies based on the development targets in addition to the growth targets that have been set in place for the country.

Journal of Health Management, 2014

This article aims at exploring and analyzing reasons for the spread of dengue outbreak in Lahore,... more This article aims at exploring and analyzing reasons for the spread of dengue outbreak in Lahore, Pakistan, in 2011. This led to about 300 deaths. Also, this study intends to review the appropriateness of government response in managing the dengue outbreak. The contributing factors in the spread of dengue disease included, among others, the demographic structure of Lahore district, environmental conditions, and urbanization and slum development with lack of health facilities. Furthermore, managerial and coordination failures at the level of city district government aggravated the situation. The governance failure was manifested by the non-framing of dengue disease as a public policy concern, especially when it had affected almost 4,500 persons leading to three deaths in the year 2010. There were coordination failures with tertiary level health institutions, and the city government was unprepared. Concrete and effective steps were taken when chief minister of the Punjab province inte...

Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, 2017

were initiated by Water and Power Development Authority (WAPDA) in 2003 and completed with an ave... more were initiated by Water and Power Development Authority (WAPDA) in 2003 and completed with an average time overrun of 200% and incurred 2.5 times more cost than originally estimated. Study of project documents, interviews from experts highlighted the critical reasons for these costly delays. These reasons were rated and ranked by all three parties of hydro power projects i.e. Client, consultant and contractor on Relative Frequency Index, Relative Severity Index and Independent Relative Importance Index through questionnaire survey. Most of the respondents agreed that "lack of political will, delay in civil work, delays in release of funds by the Government, bad Law and order situation, project start without proper site investigation and poor project time management are the leading reasons behind delays of these Hydro Power projects. These results would be helpful for policy makers and implementing agencies in better planning and mitigating the delay effects in future projects.

Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, 2016

This paper examines the dynamics of electricity demand in Pakistan at the aggregate and sectoral ... more This paper examines the dynamics of electricity demand in Pakistan at the aggregate and sectoral levels over the period 1978-2012. Panel cointegration test and Fully Modified Ordinary Least Squares method is employed to determine the long run relationship between electricity consumption, real income, real price of electricity and domestic price of non-energy products. The results reveal that electricity demand is more responsive to changes in income than changes in prices at the aggregate and disaggregate levels. Short run and long run income elasticities are positive and statistically significant, supporting the conservation hypothesis. It appears from the results that long run price elasticities are negative and significant at the aggregate level and for the agriculture, commercial, residential sectors and public utilities. The short run price elasticities are significant but low in magnitude, which implies that changes in electricity price exert minimal effect on the electricity consumption in Pakistan. The domestic price of non-energy products is positive and significant for aggregate sample in the short run, the domestic price of non-energy products exert significant negative (positive) impact on electricity demand in the agriculture (industrial) sectors. The results, thus, provide important information to the agents operating in the electricity market regarding the income and pricing policies and helps in planning the future strategy of electricity demand management.

JPMA. The Journal of the Pakistan Medical Association, 2016

To determine patients' perception regarding service and quality of healthcare at public-secto... more To determine patients' perception regarding service and quality of healthcare at public-sector institutions. The descriptive quantitative study was conducted in Kohat district, Pakistan, between July and December 2014, and focussed on 30 variables to assess the participants' perceptions of the actual healthcare service quality delivered. SERVQUAL instrument was used to measure the reliability and cronbach alpha was calculated to measure the reliability and validity of the instrument. A total of 200 questionnaires were distributed and 157(78.5%) were received back fully filled. Of them, 105(67%) were men and 52(33%) were women.The mean value of Assurance parameter was 3.05±0.88, indicating trust in public hospitals was high as they had experienced and capable doctors. On the other hand, the lowest mean value of 2.61±0.84 was for Empathy, highlighting the fact that public hospitals lacked the ability to handle patients' problem properly, services were not offered in time a...

Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, 2015

This paper aims at exploring the finance-growth-energy nexus for Pakistan over the 1972-2012 peri... more This paper aims at exploring the finance-growth-energy nexus for Pakistan over the 1972-2012 period. By employing the system GMM estimation technique, the study tries to capture the impact of financial development over energy consumption through economic growth channel and includes energy prices and urbanization in the structural model. The study finds positive and significant impact of economic growth and urbanization on energy consumption, while the effect of energy prices over energy consumption is significant but negative. Financial development positively and significantly affects energy consumption through the economic growth channel. Our analysis is important for policy makers for effective energy demand planning and conservation policies that would ensure sustainable economic development as well as serve as motivation to search alternative energy sources to meet the bourgeoning energy demand in Pakistan.

Nature, 2010

Marine stewardship: catalysing change Criticisms that the Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) progra... more Marine stewardship: catalysing change Criticisms that the Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) programme is not delivering on its promise (Nature 467, 28-29 and 531; 2010) are misplaced. After ten years of operation, the