Lahore School of Economics

Almost everyone would like to seek answers to the following if they are dabbling in securities markets. What are securities markets in generic terms, and in Pakistan? What is their structure in Pakistan as it prevails now and what are their dimensions? How securities markets operate in real world setting; what securities markets accomplish through their operations; how these operations impact on various segments of economy? What is financial regime; how it regulates market operations, and how effective it is? What is the state of financial system infrastructure supportive of market operations? How significant are these market operations and how good has been the performance thus far in whatever these markets do? What is the prognosis of securities markets and how it can be improved? Finally, how securities market compare with those in comparator countries.

This is the line of inquiry that has driven Dr. Shakil Faruqi to carry out this study - antecedents and perspectives. Dr. Shakil Faruqi has answered these questions in Financial System an Economics Development – Pakistan Volume II. How far this effort has succeeded, that is left to the readers to determine.

Dr Shakil Faruqi completed his MA (Econ) from Panjab University in 1962 with distinction and taught there for a few years. Later on he proceeded to the US and completed MA (Econ) from University of Pennsylvania and taught at Wilkes College. He completed PhD (Econ) from Rutgers University in 1972, and joined the World Bank the same year. During his long career with World Bank, he worked in many countries including Mexico, Greece, Cyprus, Turkey, Iran, Nigeria, and several East Asian countries. During 1991-95, he led training programs in banking and finance in Russia and Central Asian countries. He also conducted senior policy seminars for Latin American and East Asian Countries on their experiences with financial system reforms. He was editor of proceedings of these seminars published by EDI/World Bank. He retired from the World Bank in 1997 and worked for couple of years on assignments concerning Pakistan. He joined State Bank of Pakistan as Advisor to Governor (2000-02) where he designed and led training of SBP officers and Change Management programs. He also conducted a program for judges of banking courts of Pakistan. He published a bilingual Glossary on Banking and Finance, English-Urdu in 2000. Since 2005, he has been with Lahore School of Economics as Professor of Financial System. This book reflects experiences of nearly three decades with operations of financial systems in comparative setting.