GLOBALIZATION, DEMOCRACY AND SOCIAL SPENDING IN PAKISTAN: A TIME-SERIES ANALYSIS

Author(s) : Sarah Hakeem, Dr. Saghir Pervaiz Ghauri, Dr. Mirza Aqeel Baig

Abstract:

The study investigates the impact of globalization and democracy on the aggregate level of social spending for Pakistan for the period 1972-2020. The investigation includes how governments react to the challenges of globalization with welfare policy decisions that are located more toward reducing cost ("efficiency theory") otherwise ensuring individuals' government assistance ("compensation theory"). Empirical evidence based on Johansen Cointegration and VECM indicate the long-run and short-run dynamics between globalization, democracy, and social spending. The normalized cointegrating results show that the globalization variables (trade and financial openness) are inversely related to social spending, reflecting the existence of the “efficiency thesis”, while democracy has a positive association with social spending. The other control variable results also indicate a significant impact on social spending, specifically debt service and inflation rate have a negative impact while the economic development and unemployment rate have a positive and significant relationship with social spending in the long run.