pkpatriotic
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Building institutions
Monday, October 06, 2008
By and large, Pakistani economists tend to be activism oriented. But why pick on economists? Engineers, doctors, lawyersindeed, all professionals, have become activists first and professionals later. *
* Our history is full of failed attempts at building organisations. Recall the DFIs, numerous colleges and universities, many academies and boards, regulatory agencies and so many others that activist economists and IFIs have recommended over the years.
* Given the quality of our education, we have not been producing quality professionals. The few that exist are seriously stretched working for many donors and often end up working in a donor office. The result is that there are very few professionals available to staff these new organisations that activist economists are recommending.
* In making organisations our approach has been to focus on giving a job to some influential person regardless of credentials. That person rules the organisation and is the major beneficiary of that organisation. Professionals are at the bottom end of the pecking order poorly paid and empowered. Often they are moonlighting and not focussed on the job. Yet no activist economist would say that professionals should be paid international rates and influentials should be put in their place.
* One important measure of success for any organisation is the quality of its staff. It is not swank new buildings or fancy cars and computers but the leading lights that are housed there that tell you about the success of public sector organisations such as universities, central banks, or regulatory agencies.
* With professional staff so lacking in Pakistan, clustering can only be achieved if we have few organisations and we have very large incentives for clustering. Consequently, we must have very few organisations and very high incentives for professional clustering. This factor alone should limit the amount of organisations that we should seek to create.
A large strand in economics had for years been calling for institutional development as a key to growth. Institutions are the rules of the game that provide a framework for individual behaviour. They are laws, norms, cultural constraints that people can learn to accept and hence adapt their behaviour to.
Our activist economist does not wish to influence these even among his community. Much easier to create a government organisation, which means instant credit and power to the recommender. Indeed, those who recommend find themselves in powerful positions with flags and outriders.
How do you build institutions? This is not easy and is quite unpalatable to the activist power-hungry lobby. Institutions are built when people agree to community values which restrain individual power. Of course, this would also mean agreeing to a discipline which precludes instant policy without analysis.
One important institution that professionals can develop is their own profession. The profession sets quality standards, defines professional behaviour, credits innovation and achievement and develops the discipline of peer review. This can only be done if all professionals agree to community development along well established professional practice. These would include.
* Quality standards based on international peer review. For example, what defines a quality economist, or a quality engineer? How do we value research that has been published in peer review research?
* Community censure of unprofessional behaviour. Currently professionals are visibly promoting themselves especially in palace intrigues with all manner of powerful people. Through these means they are corrupting organizations, influencing appointments, and even tampering with syllabi and policy with no professional peer review.
* There should be a culture of professional debate. For example, these ideas are being put on institutional development forward. Will they be debated and discussed widely to see if we can establish some variant of them.
* There should be peer monitoring of professional behaviour especially of professionals who join government. For example, when a central bank or a utility regulator does a poor job, very few outside the profession understand the harm done. Only a quality profession can provide the kind of peer monitoring that will keep the professional in charge of these organisations on their toes. Such monitoring will also ensure quality appointments challenging current perceptions that any retired person is a professional capable of running everything from PIA to a university.
If professionals put in effort to form a community on the basis of these restraints, professional institutions could be formed. Responsible behaviour geared toward professional behaviour would follow. Then we could have genuine improvement in productivity. And that would be genuine sustained growth.
by Nadeem Ul Haque
Monday, October 06, 2008
By and large, Pakistani economists tend to be activism oriented. But why pick on economists? Engineers, doctors, lawyersindeed, all professionals, have become activists first and professionals later. *
* Our history is full of failed attempts at building organisations. Recall the DFIs, numerous colleges and universities, many academies and boards, regulatory agencies and so many others that activist economists and IFIs have recommended over the years.
* Given the quality of our education, we have not been producing quality professionals. The few that exist are seriously stretched working for many donors and often end up working in a donor office. The result is that there are very few professionals available to staff these new organisations that activist economists are recommending.
* In making organisations our approach has been to focus on giving a job to some influential person regardless of credentials. That person rules the organisation and is the major beneficiary of that organisation. Professionals are at the bottom end of the pecking order poorly paid and empowered. Often they are moonlighting and not focussed on the job. Yet no activist economist would say that professionals should be paid international rates and influentials should be put in their place.
* One important measure of success for any organisation is the quality of its staff. It is not swank new buildings or fancy cars and computers but the leading lights that are housed there that tell you about the success of public sector organisations such as universities, central banks, or regulatory agencies.
* With professional staff so lacking in Pakistan, clustering can only be achieved if we have few organisations and we have very large incentives for clustering. Consequently, we must have very few organisations and very high incentives for professional clustering. This factor alone should limit the amount of organisations that we should seek to create.
A large strand in economics had for years been calling for institutional development as a key to growth. Institutions are the rules of the game that provide a framework for individual behaviour. They are laws, norms, cultural constraints that people can learn to accept and hence adapt their behaviour to.
Our activist economist does not wish to influence these even among his community. Much easier to create a government organisation, which means instant credit and power to the recommender. Indeed, those who recommend find themselves in powerful positions with flags and outriders.
How do you build institutions? This is not easy and is quite unpalatable to the activist power-hungry lobby. Institutions are built when people agree to community values which restrain individual power. Of course, this would also mean agreeing to a discipline which precludes instant policy without analysis.
One important institution that professionals can develop is their own profession. The profession sets quality standards, defines professional behaviour, credits innovation and achievement and develops the discipline of peer review. This can only be done if all professionals agree to community development along well established professional practice. These would include.
* Quality standards based on international peer review. For example, what defines a quality economist, or a quality engineer? How do we value research that has been published in peer review research?
* Community censure of unprofessional behaviour. Currently professionals are visibly promoting themselves especially in palace intrigues with all manner of powerful people. Through these means they are corrupting organizations, influencing appointments, and even tampering with syllabi and policy with no professional peer review.
* There should be a culture of professional debate. For example, these ideas are being put on institutional development forward. Will they be debated and discussed widely to see if we can establish some variant of them.
* There should be peer monitoring of professional behaviour especially of professionals who join government. For example, when a central bank or a utility regulator does a poor job, very few outside the profession understand the harm done. Only a quality profession can provide the kind of peer monitoring that will keep the professional in charge of these organisations on their toes. Such monitoring will also ensure quality appointments challenging current perceptions that any retired person is a professional capable of running everything from PIA to a university.
If professionals put in effort to form a community on the basis of these restraints, professional institutions could be formed. Responsible behaviour geared toward professional behaviour would follow. Then we could have genuine improvement in productivity. And that would be genuine sustained growth.
by Nadeem Ul Haque
