March 11, 2011: This column was originally published in Dawn.

THE legal drama of the ‘Raymond Davis killings’ was brought to an end under the Sharia mechanism of Diyat. Funds, from unknown sources, were allegedly transferred to the heirs of the two victims, as remuneration in exchange for discontinuing their noble quest for justice. Or was the money transferred to them as justice? Not sure on that. Continue reading Op-ed: And justice for all →

February 7, 2011: This column was originally published in Dawn.

In introductory economics courses, economic systems are explained by using the two extreme (and mostly theoretical) examples of the ‘command economy’ and the ‘laissez-faire economy’. The former is fully controlled by the state and the latter has no state interference at all. Most economies in the world today (except, perhaps, for North Korea) exist somewhere between these two extremes: the mixed economy. Continue reading Op-ed: The market and state →

January 11, 2011: This column was originally published in Dawn on the 21st of January, 2011.

THE country’s financial squeeze continues unabated after recent attempts by the PPP-led administration to alleviate pressure on public coffers came to naught. The ruling party was left isolated by opposition parties as well as its own coalition partners as one after another proposed tax reform and increases in power tariffs and oil prices were withdrawn in the face of intense political opposition. In effect, political realities defeated economic realities. Continue reading Op-ed: Reform or bust →

November 2, 2010: This column was originally published in Dawn on the 2nd of November, 2010 under the title: “An ill-judged move”.

PRIME Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani, in an address over the weekend, referred to the nationalisation of educational institutions in 1972 by then president Zulfikar Ali Bhutto as a “blunder”. Interestingly it appears that this was not a controversial statement.

Other than a rebuke from the Workers’ Party Pakistan, so far few appear to have stepped up to defend the deceased founder of the PPP. Even former prime minister Benazir Bhutto, when she reversed her party’s previous position by embarking on a privatisation drive in the late 1980s, described it as appropriate to the era just as nationalisation had been appropriate (not a blunder) to her father’s era. Continue reading Op-ed: On nationalizing schools →

Feb 2010: I presented a paper at the 7th annual Educational Symposium for Research and Innovation (ESRI) 2010 hosted by the Graduate School of Education and Human Development (GSEHD) of the George Washington University.

The paper reviewed private-public school comparisons in low-income countries in an attempt to analyze the methodological issues that limit the research and therefore limit the inferences that can be made. Based on 18 studies conducted in 13 countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America, the paper explored the methodologies used in these private-public comparisons based on a five-aspect analytical framework, which covered: study design, choice of treatment variable, dependent variable(s), control variable(s) and statistical methods.

Continue reading Presentation: Methodological issues in comparisons of private and public schools →

June 2008: As a graduate student at the Graduate School of Education and Human Development (GSEHD) at the George Washington University, I worked with two other graduate students to conduct an evaluation of Urban Alliance‘s High School Internship Program (HSIP).

HSIP had been operational for 12 years at the time and was aimed at helping teenagers from under-resourced parts of Washington, DC to gain work experience with the objective that this experience would help them be better prepared and better skilled when they enter the job-market and/or a higher education path.

Continue reading Research: Evaluation of Urban Alliance’s High School Internship Program →

July 2006: This review of the literature on the growth of private sector schools in Pakistan was adapted from my Master’s thesis at the University of Oxford and published in the Journal of Independent Studies and Research.

Abstract: The education system in Pakistan is languishing in an abysmal condition. In the absence of appropriate and consistent policy, the continued depreciation of facilities and erosion of public credibility in the state system many parents are opting out of the state system and moving to the growing private sector.

Continue reading Research: The growth of private sector schools in Pakistan →

June 2006: In the run up to the Sindh government’s 2006-07 budget debate in the Sindh provincial assembly, my colleague Sumair Siraj and I (we both taught economics at SZABIST at the time) were engaged by ActionAid Pakistan to conduct a gender benefit incidence analysis of the Sindh government’s recent provincial budgets.

We produced an analysis of the Sindh government’s budgets over a four year period in June of 2006. The analysis was shared with members of the Sindh Provincial Assembly before they debated the Sindh Finance Bill 2006.