Upon returning to Pakistan in 1957 at the age of 23, Haq joined the
Planning Commission as Assistant Chief while it prepared its first
Five-Year Plan. Influenced by the dominant economic thought in American academia, Haq advocated capitalism as the economic base of the national economy and helped guide the government to apply free-market principles to boost the economy. This approach was wholeheartedly embraced by the military government of General
Ayub Khan after it came to power in October 1958. By the 1960s as Chief Economist of the Planning Commission Haq was delivering speeches all over the country in support of these economic policies. While the international community was applauding Pakistan as a model of development, Haq developed concerns that all was not well with the distribution of the benefits of growth. Rapid economic development made Haq's team doubt the long-term viability of such a pattern of growth, and he increasingly supported heavier taxation of the asset owning classes. In a widely reported speech to the
Applied Economics Research Centre at the
University of Karachi in April 1968, Haq alleged that "22 industrial family groups had come to dominate the economic and financial life-cycle of Pakistan and that they controlled about two-thirds of industrial assets, 80% of banking and 79% of insurance assets in the industrial domain." The list included Dawood family of
Dawood Group, Saigols of
Saigol Group, Adamjees of
Adamjee Group, Colony, Fancy, Valika, Jalil, Bawany, Crescent, Wazir Ali, Gandhara, Ispahani,
House of Habib, Khyber, Nishat Group, Beco,
Gul Ahmed Group, Arag, Hafiz, Karim, Milwala and Dada. that served as a precursor to the
basic needs and
human development approaches of the 1980s. While working at the World Bank, Haq was invited by Prime Minister
Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto to join the Ministry of Finance, but ultimately refused as he had strong opposing views on Bhutto's
program of nationalization. In 1973 Bhutto again asked Mahbub to return to Pakistan and join his administration in devising a strategy that would lift a large number of Pakistanis out of poverty and
stagflation, but their major differences persuaded Haq not to return. Despite this major acceleration in
social spending, Haq was forced to resign in January 1986 due to protests regarding his reforms. He was reappointed as Finance Minister in the caretaker administration established by General Zia-ul-Haq after he dismissed the Junejo government in May 1988. Haq's term ended when the PPP government of
Benazir Bhutto was sworn in following the
general elections of November 1988. In 1989, he was appointed as Special Advisor to the
UNDP Administrator
William Draper in New York City to produce the first
Human Development Report. In this capacity, Haq initiated the concept of
Human Development and the
Human Development Report as its Project Director. He led a team of international scholars including
Amartya Sen,
Paul Streeten,
Inge Kaul, Frances Stewart, and
Richard Jolly to prepare annual Human Development Reports. In 1996, Haq founded the Human Development Center in
Islamabad, Pakistan — a policy research institute committed to organizing professional
research,
policy studies and seminars in the area of human development, with a special focus on
South Asia. In acknowledgement of his contributions, the Human Development Centre, Islamabad was officially renamed following his death as the Mahbub ul Haq Human Development Centre on 13 December 1998, with Mrs. Khadija Haq as president. ==Death==