The Pakistan Institute of Development Economics (PIDE) was founded at Karachi in 1957 and in 1964 accorded the status of an autonomous research organisation by the Government of Pakistan. In November 2006, PIDE was granted the degree awarding status which was then formalised by an Act of Parliament in March 2010. It is our vision that PIDE functions as a World Class Centre of Excellence for Research and Teaching and for the past fifty years PIDE has been dedicated to the generation, attainment and proliferation of knowledge to achieve this goal. The emphasis on areas and topics of research has changed in PIDE from time to time with the changing needs of different eras covering both theoretical and empirical research in Development Economics in general and on Pakistan-related economic issues in particular. In addition to providing a firm analytical basis to economic policy-making, its research represents to both outside world and in Pakistan itself, cutting edge economic research. PIDE has also extended itself to related social sciences, such as demography and anthropology and interdisciplinary studies increasingly define the widening scope of research that must be undertaken for proper economic and development policy to have sound underpinnings.