Measurement of Cost of Capital for Foreign Direct Investment in Pakistan: A Neoclassical Approach

Capital can move inside and outside the boundaries of a country in search of the highest financial return and greatest security for its operation in the host regions. High return from investment is linked with the incentive mechanism offered by the host country in attracting FDI to fill the investment gap and diffusion of other skills. To attract the foreign investors, the successive governments in Pakistan, offered various investment incentives in the form of tax concessions (tax expenditure) and direct expenditure on infrastructural provisions. The taxation policy of Pakistan has great relevance for Transnational Corporation’s (TNC) involvement in production activities. It is perceived to be a significantly influential factor in determining the inflow of foreign investment through the cost of capital and the resulting after tax return. Stimulating foreign investment, mainly through the large TNCs, requires cost minimising devices, which are reflected in fixed cost of a long-term investment project. The cost of fixed assets in such projects depends upon the rate of return, the price of capital goods and, most importantly, the tax treatment of generated income. Foreign investors are generally pursuing two sets of objectives that are related to their decision to invest. First, they prefer for locational advantages like market size, access to raw material and the availability of skilled labour. Secondly, they have their concern with the incentives offered by the host countries through their fiscal policies. These policies attract the investment considerations of the foreign investors. TNCs search the second set of objectives only if the first set is fulfilled. This paper uses the Jorgenson’s (1963, 1967) Neoclassical Investment Model to explore the cost implications that are concerned with the importing capital and the return after being treated for fiscal provisions.

The Determinants of Foreign Direct Investment in Pakistan: an Empirical Investigation

The changing modes of international transactions and the cross-border mobilisation of factor resources, in pursuance of transnational production, constitute new dimensions for sustained economic growth. Foreign Direct Investment (an influential element of this process) is defined as the source of acquisition of managerial control by a business enterprise of a foreign country over a business activity in a host country [Graham (1982)]. The changing perceptions and more attractive policies of the host developing nations have changed the destinations of FDI flows from industrially developed countries to high growth developing centres. FDI stock held by developing countries has risen from $132.95 billion in 1980 to$ 1438.48 billion in 1999. Their share in inward stock has reached to 30.14 percent in 1999 as against 26.2 percent in 1980. FDI inflows during this period were raised from $4.42 billion to$ 208.0 billion, at an annual growth rate of 22.5 percent while GDP growth rate for that period was 3.9 percent. FDI brings the most needed capital fund, advanced production technique, snobbish managerial skills, advertising and marketing expertise, global links and the controversial phenomenon of “transfer pricing”.1 Pakistan, the world’s 7th most populated country with 140 million people, a relatively high growth rate of GDP (averaging around 6 percent), with a significant stock of natural resources and a variety of investment provisions has remained unattractive for FDI inflows.

An experimental and numerical study of surface interactions in turbulent swirling jets

Convective heat transfer and drying processes are found in industrial applications from gas turbine blade cooling to drying of food products and paper. In many instances, these processes rely on either a single or an array of fluid jets which impinge onto a surface. Traditionally, non-swirling impinging jets have been used, but interest surrounds possible advantages from imposing swirl into these jets to further promote heat and mass transfer at the surface. The challenge of resolving this question is that including swirl further complicates fluid-surface interactions. Studies are faced with the complexity of flow behaviour, the need for intricate measurement techniques and jets which seamlessly transition from non-swirling to swirling with well-defined boundary conditions. To better understand the nature of turbulent jet impingement with, and without, swirl requires carefully designed experiments covering parameters believed to affect the magnitude and uniformity of heat transfer. This research investigated, experimentally and numerically, incompressible turbulent impinging air jets using aerodynamically derived swirl. The aim was to elucidate the effects of different parameters on fluid flow and surface heat transfer characteristics. Measurements of mean velocity and turbulence, surface pressure and temperatures were done using Constant Temperature Anemometry, integrating micro-manometer (pressure) tappings and steady-state heated thin foil technique via infrared thermography. Imaging for flow visualisations was also done. Numerical simulations were performed using ANSYS Fluent (version 14.5). Test conditions investigated encompassed a range of Reynolds numbers (Re = 11,600 – 35,000), swirl numbers (S = 0 – 1.05) and nozzle-to-plate distances (H = 1D – 6D). Results show that the use of low-to-medium swirl numbers (S = 0.27 – 0.45) is found to improve heat transfer (Nu) in the impingement region compared to non-swirling (S = 0) jets over H ≤ 4D, with little improvement in spatial Nu uniformity. When S further increases, significant enhancement in Nu occurs only at near-field impingement (H ≤ 2D), regardless of the impingement area (footprint). At H ≥ 4D, a significantly low but more uniform radial profile of Nu is obtained. Results conclude the effect of swirl on the heat transfer characteristics is a complex relationship, which depends on the Reynolds number and nozzleto- plate distance. Whilst high swirl can lead to significant improvements in heat transfer, this is not necessarily always the case. It appears that there exist a threshold impingement distance and a transitional swirl number (dependent on Re) over which the effect of swirl on field and turbulence at different swirl numbers and nozzle-to-plate distances, with flow recirculation in near-field impingement (H = 2D) and non-swirl like at far-field (H = 6D). The occurrence of peak heat transfers at different swirl numbers is largely correlated with swirl induced turbulence characteristics near the impingement surface. Increase in Reynolds number augments the magnitude of Cp and heat transfer. For a given S, flow field and heat transfer distributions are found to be largely independent of Re

Measurement of Cost of Capital for Foreign Direct Investment in Pakistan: A Neoclassical Approach

Capital can move inside and outside the boundaries of a country in search of the highest financial return and greatest security for its operation in the host regions. High return from investment is linked with the incentive mechanism offered by the host country in attracting FDI to fill the investment gap and diffusion of other skills. To attract the foreign investors, the successive governments in Pakistan, offered various investment incentives in the form of tax concessions (tax expenditure) and direct expenditure on infrastructural provisions. The taxation policy of Pakistan has great relevance for Transnational Corporation’s (TNC) involvement in production activities. It is perceived to be a significantly influential factor in determining the inflow of foreign investment through the cost of capital and the resulting after tax return. Stimulating foreign investment, mainly through the large TNCs, requires cost minimising devices, which are reflected in fixed cost of a long-term investment project. The cost of fixed assets in such projects depends upon the rate of return, the price of capital goods and, most importantly, the tax treatment of generated income. Foreign investors are generally pursuing two sets of objectives that are related to their decision to invest. First, they prefer for locational advantages like market size, access to raw material and the availability of skilled labour. Secondly, they have their concern with the incentives offered by the host countries through their fiscal policies. These policies attract the investment considerations of the foreign investors. TNCs search the second set of objectives only if the first set is fulfilled

The Determinants of Foreign Direct Investment in Pakistan: an Empirical Investigation

The changing modes of international transactions and the cross-border mobilisation of factor resources, in pursuance of transnational production, constitute new dimensions for sustained economic growth. Foreign Direct Investment (an influential element of this process) is defined as the source of acquisition of managerial control by a business enterprise of a foreign country over a business activity in a host country [Graham (1982)]. The changing perceptions and more attractive policies of the host developing nations have changed the destinations of FDI flows from industrially developed countries to high growth developing centres. FDI stock held by developing countries has risen from $132.95 billion in 1980 to$ 1438.48 billion in 1999. Their share in inward stock has reached to 30.14 percent in 1999 as against 26.2 percent in 1980. FDI inflows during this period were raised from $4.42 billion to$ 208.0 billion, at an annual growth rate of 22.5 percent while GDP growth rate for that period was 3.9 percent

Examining Students’ Perception of using Social Media Technologies for Learning Purpose

This study set out to examine the factors that influence postgraduate perception on the adoption social media technologies in learning is social influence. So many factors is said to influence users’ attitude towards the use of a particular technology. In the case of social media technologies, social influence which include parent, lecturers and learning or institutional managements are part of the relevant factors that can militate the adoption of social media for learning purposes. Students might be denied the access to social media technologies in the course of learning for some potentially wrong reasons. If social media technologies are perceived as just for social activities such as gaming and interacting with friends and family, this perception would definitely affect students’ opinion towards the use of social media technologies for learning activities. As such, this present study relies on the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT) to provide a comprehensive understanding to university students’ perception of using social media technologies for learning purposes. Keywords: UTAUT, Social media technologies, postgraduate students

Clay-Iron Nanocomposite for the Removal of Sulfur as Toxic Pollutant from Fuel by Catalytic Oxidative Desulfurization

The current environmental pollution has great impact on climate change and the present study was aimed at removal of sulfur as a pollutant for environment on combustion of kerosene fuel using clay, namely attapulgite and magnetic iron (ATP)-Fe3O4 nanocomposite. To lower the toxic sulfur and to enhance the property of reduced sulfur fuel specifically the electrical conductivity (EC) was also improved by the addition of quality improver additives. The (ATP)-Fe3O4 nanocomposite was synthesized by co-precipitation method and the structure, and morphology were evaluated using scanning electron microscopy (SEM), and fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR). The average size of Fe-NPs which helps in the oxidative desulfurization was found to be <100 nm, and the toxic sulfur content in fuel was reduced up to 71% from its original using 05mg/mL of nanocomposite at 150°C for 30 min along with CH3COOH and H2O2 proceed with water washing. The EC of the oxidative desulfurized (ODS) fuel was enhanced by the addition of (0.5, 0.7 and 1.0ppm) STADIS 450 additive as compared to MEROX kerosene fuel (untreated). The ODS kerosene showed greater stability of EC over MEROX kerosene

Accurate Tracking of Manoeuvring Target using Scale Estimation and Detection

Camera zoom operation and fast approaching/receding target causes scaling of acquired target in video frames. Fast moving target manifests in large inter-frame motion. In general, non-uniform background degrades performance of tracking algorithms. Fast Fourier transform (FFT)-based Correlation algorithms improve tracking in this scenario, but their applications is limited to small inter-frame motion. Increasing search region has implication on execution speed of the algorithms. Rapid target scaling, non-uniform background and large inter-frame motion of target hinder accurate and long term visual tracking. These challenges have been addressed for extended target tracking by augmenting fast discriminative scale space tracking (fDSST) algorithm with probable target location prediction and target detection. Localisation of fast motion has been achieved by applying fused outputs of Kalman filter and quadratic regression based prediction before applying fDSST. It has helped in accurate localisation of fast motion without increasing search region. In each frame, target location and size have been estimated using fDSST and further refined by target detection near this location. Smoothing and limiting of trajectory and size of detected target has enhanced tracking performance. Experimental results show considerable improvement of precision, success rate and centre location error tracking performance against state-of-the-art trackers in stringent conditions

Elusive Partnerships: Gas extraction and CSR in Bangladesh

This paper examines Chevron's programme of CSR at a gas field in Bangladesh. Whilst apparently building partnerships in the villages that surround the Bibiyana Gas Field, we suggest that the corporation remains detached from the local population via their community development programmes and employment policies. This contradiction is submerged by ideas and practices within global development discourse which celebrate the disconnection and disengagement of donors via the rhetoric of sustainability. Chiming with development praxis and the neo-liberal values which underscore it by stressing self-reliance, entrepreneurship and ‘helping people to help themselves’, the corporation's Community Engagement Programme does little to meet the demands of local people who hoped for employment and long term investment, a form of connection that is discordant to discourses of self-reliance and sustainability