{'fraction_non_alphanumeric': 0.018819503849443968, 'fraction_numerical': 0.006843455945252352, 'mean_word_length': 5.25668449197861, 'pattern_counts': {'":': 0, '<': 0, '<?xml version=': 0, '>': 0, 'https://': 0, 'lorem ipsum': 0, 'www.': 0, 'xml': 0}, 'pii_count': 0, 'substrings_counts': 0, 'word_list_counts': {'cursed_substrings.json': 0, 'profanity_word_list.json': 0, 'sexual_word_list.json': 0, 'zh_pornsignals.json': 0}}
Relative Commodity Price Convergence in Pakistan

This study tests intercity price convergence in Pakistan using monthly panel data on the prices of fifteen commodities and services for ten major cities of Pakistan viz Islamabad, Karachi, Lahore, Peshawar, Faisalabad, Multan, Mardan, Hyderabad, Quetta and Khuzdar for the period January 2000 to December 2011. We categorize all the commodities and services into tradable and non-tradable groups and employ the second generation panel unit root tests to examine the intercity price convergence in Pakistan. We also estimate the speed of convergence in relative commodity prices using half life method. Our results indicate stronger convergence in the tradable goods than the non-tradable goods. For robustness, we examine the impact of price volatility on the speed of convergence and the impact of distance (measured as transportation cost) on relative commodity prices. We observe that our main findings remain intact, however the impact of distance on relative prices is found to be very small but significant. Further, we note that the impact of price volatility on speed of convergence is positive and significant.