Reflecting on my discipline—as practiced in Pak—in light of this great thread. Beyond unis, the employment space is too thin to absorb econ graduates. Donors drive the development sector, a space captured by a handful of consultants mostly based in Islamabad, some in Lahore. https://twitter.com/emadansarih/status/1273284900502802432

Lahore, even as the provincial capital and ostensible hub of development work in the province, offers limited opportunities for fresh econ grads. Many of our students flock to IDEAS and CERP, which provide them a strong platform to hone their applied research skills.

However, students mainly use this experience as a springboard to graduate programs abroad—owing to the limited and saturated market for their skills. IDEAS, CERP, IGC, CDPR, and UU also have their own capacity contraints—they can’t absorb everyone and for extended periods.

Critiques of the quality of uni education, each year, some of our strong unis produce a competent cohort of young economists equipped to significantly contribute to Punjab’s development and policy programs.

However, the public sector’s entrenched reliance on the civil services and donor-funded consultants to inform and implement its sparse programs has structurally excluded several cohorts of young economists from locally applying their skills and expertise.

So our brain drain is not fully exogenous. It’s fundamentally linked to the woefully constrained space for development work in the province (and in the country).

The legal profession might have its elite lawyers; economics has its elite consultants.