Glimpses of policy planning exercises

Policy planning requires exhaustive exercises. During these exercises, policy planners have to deal with a complex set of issues. At the same time, many of them develop their own thoughts in the process. These thoughts contribute to policy formulation and implementation. Due to this it is sometimes imperative to know about such thoughts, especially in order to understand different dimensions of policies and plans.
 'The Economy in Transition: Challenging Issues' is a book which tries to elaborate on such thoughts that occurred to Dr Shamsul Alam, a policy planner. Dr Alam is serving as a member of the General Economics Division of Bangladesh Planning Commission. The book contains 32 essays and articles. They have been prepared by the author on different occasions as policy briefs, speeches and writings. The topics include macroeconomic trend, Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), public investment, development planning, budgeting etc.
As a Planning Commission member, Dr Alam has worked extensively on formulating the Sixth Five Year Plan (FYP) and the 10-Year Perspective Plan. Right now, he is working on the Seventh FYP and the Bangladesh Delta Plan. He has, in fact, led the teams in formulating plans and development strategy papers. It is his vast area of work that has enabled him to prepare the various background reports and briefs over the years.
These articles were published earlier in The Financial Express over a couple of years.  Some of these have helped in putting at rest debates on policy planning and the trends of economic development; some have helped in clarifying confusions. Again, some articles appear to be defending the government's positions; and some also serve as rebuttal to criticism made by economists and experts.
For example, in the article titled 'A Review of CPD's Critique of the Economy in FY2014' the author questions the think tank's analysis of the political-business cycle. The CPD analysis (published in October, 2013) has pointed out that Bangladesh has entered a political-business cycle, where economic growth would decline and revenue expenditure would rise in an election year; and that was the case during the last three election years.
Shamsul Alam has found the observation to be not right. He questions the econometric tool (Ordinary Least Square based regression model) that has been used to draw analysis and says: "So the election-year phenomenon up until now has not influenced GDP growth significantly negatively. Economy runs in cycle and seeing declining trend in any indicator in a quarter may not lead to convergence to annual final outcome. CPD's comments appear more of rhetoric." (P-144)
It is true that the GDP growth has consistently declined in each of the previous five election years (1991, 1996, 2002, 2007 and 2009). Although 2007 was an election year, no election took place.  This time, the previous trends of political-business cycle in the election year took a break. The GDP growth rate in fiscal year (FY)'14 stood at 6.06 per cent; which was slightly higher than 6.01 per cent in FY'13.
All the articles in the book do not warrant in-depth reading, and some are basically kinds of statement and narration. The book is not a conventional read; rather it serves as a reference one having relevant data and statistics. Nevertheless, the book will be of help to researchers, academics, journalists and students.

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The Economy in Transition: Challenging Issues
By Shamsul Alam
Pages: 256
Published by Tumpa Prokashoni, Dhaka; 2015