Title: Multi-dimensional income inequality in Pakistan

Authors: Abdul Hamid; Naeem Akram

Addresses: Military Accounts Training Institutes, Saddar, Rawalpindi, Pakistan ' Ministry of Economic Affairs, C Block, Pak Secretariat, Islamabad, Pakistan

Abstract: Inequality along with poverty has been a serious challenge for most of the developing countries. There have been several historical, political, social and economic dimensions of the inequalities. The present study provides a detailed analysis of various income dimensions of inequality at national and provincial level in Pakistan. This paper also provides a detailed analysis of the causes and consequences of these inequalities. The analysis shows that the gaps between haves and have-nots is widening. The distributional inequality has not been given much significance in Pakistan and the distributional policy measures like direct taxes have been weak. As a result, the direct tax to GDP ratio could not be increased over 10% in the country. The study finds that income inequalities have increased during 2001 to 2008. As in 2001-02, GINI coefficient was calculated as 0.27 and in 2007-08, it reached to 0.29. It has also been observed that inequality is highest in Sindh followed by Punjab, Khyber Paktunkawa (KPK) and Baluchistan provinces.

Keywords: income inequality; asset distribution; economic growth; Pakistan; developing countries.

DOI: 10.1504/IJEBR.2014.063939

International Journal of Economics and Business Research, 2014 Vol.8 No.1, pp.21 - 35

Received: 12 Apr 2013
Accepted: 31 May 2013
Published online: 29 Aug 2014 *

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