Javed Younas: Understanding the Woes of Pakistan’s Electricity Sector and Possible Solutions

Moynihan Institute of Global Affairs

South Asia Center presents:

Understanding the Woes of Pakistan’s Electricity Sector and Possible Solutions: A Behavioral Approach    

Electricity fuels all aspects of our everyday lives, including production, consumption, communication, transportation, and routine financial transactions. Pakistan’s electricity sector has long been facing unprecedented challenges. It is stuck in a bad equilibrium characterized by costly energy production, overloaded infrastructure, high transmission and distribution losses, extraordinary load shedding, and mounting circular debt. Consequently, the economy as a whole suffers from unreliable and poor quality of electricity provision. Why, despite the attention given by every government, has this sector not been able to recover from the bad equilibrium? Drawing upon the findings from our recent work, this talk will mainly focus on the distortions in the distribution system arising from: (i) high distribution losses due to unmetered consumption or theft, and (ii) low revenue recovery.Javed Younas is a Professor of Economics at the American University of Sharjah and a Research Fellow at the Centre for Economic Research in Pakistan. He is spending his sabbatical leave this semester as a Visiting Scholar at the Moynihan Institute. In his previous academic/research positions, he has been an Aman Research Fellow at Harvard University, a Short-term Visiting Scholar at the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis and a faculty member at Central Michigan University. His research focus lies in the areas of international political economy, energy economics, conflicts and behavioral economics. He has published widely in well-known journals. His detailed professional information can be viewed at: https://sites.google.com/site/javedyounas/

For more information or to request additional accommodations, please contact Emera Bridger Wilson, elbridge@syr.edu.