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16 Pages : 159-169

http://dx.doi.org/10.31703/gssr.2024(IX-III).16      10.31703/gssr.2024(IX-III).16      Published : Sep 2024

Financial Sector Reforms and Inflation-Growth Nexus

    In the 1980s, Pakistan's financial reforms reduced central bank borrowing, raising government debt and tax collection needs. In this context, the conventional approach to evaluating the costs and benefits of low inflation proves inadequate. The sacrifice ratio (SR) focuses on demand contraction's impact on economic activity and fails to capture the true costs of inflation by overlooking the supply-side effects of reduced fiscal space. This study re-evaluates the SR, accounting for both the demand contraction channel and the long-term supply side impact of diminished fiscal space. We hypothesize that the cumulative costs outweigh the long-term benefits of price stability. By incorporating fiscal space scenarios into the time-series model for SR estimation; our results indicate an SR approximately double that found in earlier studies. These findings highlight the importance of incorporating fiscal implications into monetary policy decisions to support sustainable economic growth.

    Sacrifice Ratio (SR), Fiscal Policy, Monetary Policy, Phillips Curve, Output
    (1) Nadeem Iqbal
    Assistant Professor, Department of Economics, University of Peshawar, KP, Pakistan.
    (2) Aisha Rehman
    PhD Scholar, Department of Economics, University of Peshawar, KP, Pakistan.
    (3) Wasim Shahid Malik
    Professor, Department of Economics, University of Peshawar, KP, Pakistan.