Capital Markets and Foreign Ownership Restrictions: An Empirical Analysis of Emerging Stock Markets

In the 1990s, the hot issue in international finance was the growing interest of portfolio managers in the emerging stock markets. The interest in the emerging markets gained rapid attention, which is evident from the global trends, towards the opening up of economies and financial markets, free capital flow and the privatisation of financial institutions. Earlier the emerging markets were isolated due to several factors that had posed serious problems for international investors. These markets lacked the depth, regulatory framework, and structural safeguards that had characterised the equity markets in the developed world. Capital markets are called integrated, if assets with perfectly correlated rates of returns have the same price regardless of the location in which they are traded. Alternatively, capital market are called segmented, if financial assets traded in different markets “with identical risk characteristics” have different returns due to different investment restrictions.1 Segmentation may be due to individuals’ attitudes, government restrictions over capital movements or irrationality. In the past twenty-five years, modern finance theory has proved to be a major development in finance, which comprises of portfolio theory, capital market theory and efficient market theory. These modern developments can be traced back to the work of Markowitz (1959); Sharpe (1964); Solnik (1974) etc., which assumes that security prices fully reflect all publicly available information. Due to this information, potential investors can gain benefits through international diversification. The major attraction of forming international portfolios lies in the potential for risk reduction through diversification of unsystematic risk.

Capital Markets and Foreign Ownership Restrictions: An Empirical Analysis of Emerging Stock Markets

In the 1990s, the hot issue in international finance was the growing interest of portfolio managers in the emerging stock markets. The interest in the emerging markets gained rapid attention, which is evident from the global trends, towards the opening up of economies and financial markets, free capital flow and the privatisation of financial institutions. Earlier the emerging markets were isolated due to several factors that had posed serious problems for international investors. These markets lacked the depth, regulatory framework, and structural safeguards that had characterised the equity markets in the developed world. Capital markets are called integrated, if assets with perfectly correlated rates of returns have the same price regardless of the location in which they are traded. Alternatively, capital market are called segmented, if financial assets traded in different markets “with identical risk characteristics” have different returns due to different investment restrictions.1 Segmentation may be due to individuals’ attitudes, government restrictions over capital movements or irrationality

The Effects of Informational Framing on Charitable Pledges: Experimental Evidence from a Fund Raising Campaign

We designed a field experiment to test the direction of the impact of informational frame on charitable pledges. We solicited charitable pledges from 395 students during a campaign aimed at helping students through students at the School of Economics, Quaid-i-Azam University (QAU), Islamabad. The participants are randomly divided into 5 different treatments. In the Pledge Disclosed (PD) treatment, we provided information to students about the average size of pledge we received from participants in the Baseline (BL) treatment. Similarly, in the Need Disclosed (ND) treatment, we provided information about the total need of those who asked for assistantship. In the Pledge & Need Disclosed (P&ND) treatment, we informed the students about both the need as well as the pledge made by the students to meet that need. In All Disclosed (AD) treatment, we provided details about the need, pledges, the previous history of the project, and the pledge by Charity Australia International. The findings show that relative to BL treatment, charitable pledges decreased when participants were informed about the previous pledges and the total required need. However, charitable pledge increased when full information was provided to the participants. JEL Classification: D64 Keywords: Charitable Pledges, Philanthropy, Helping Students through Students, Field Experimen

Hepatitis B virus subgenotypes D1 and D3 are prevalent in Pakistan

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>As the hepatitis B genotyping is important for assessing its clinical implications and geographical distribution, the sub-genotypes have been found useful for determination of specific genomic markers related to hepatocarcinogenesis. In Pakistan, there is no reported data on molecular evolutionary analysis of HBV. A study was, therefore, much needed to evaluate the spectra of mutations present in the strains prevalent here.</p> <p>Findings</p> <p>to confirm specificity of PCR typing, phylogenetic analysis of the pre-S1 region and the divergence was studied through 13 sequences of 362 bp (accession number <ext-link ext-link-type="gen" ext-link-id="EF432765">EF432765</ext-link> – <ext-link ext-link-type="gen" ext-link-id="EF432777">EF432777</ext-link>). A total of 315 serum samples, selected from HBsAg positive patients representing the major ethnic groups, residing in Karachi, Sindh were tested for genotyping. Genotype D (219/315) was found to be the most prevalent (70%) amongst our patients. The rest of the genotypes A and a mixture of A and D (AD) were distributed as 20%, and 10% respectively. Phylogenetic tree demonstrated clustering of 11 samples with subgenotype D1 sequences and the remaining two strains on a branch within D3 samples. All samples intermixed with strains from other countries and were found to be closely related to Indian, Iranian and Egyptian HBV strains with 98.7 – 99.0% homology.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>This study confirms the predominance of genotype D in southeastern Asia and presence of subgenotypes DI and D3 in the Pakistani infected patients. More studies are required to investigate the reason for fewer inclusions of D3 compared to the D1 in Pakistani HBV strains.</p

Frequency of ALK rearrangement by FISH testing and its correlation with ALK-IHC in adenocarcinoma of primary lung origin

Anaplastic lymphoma kinase (ALK) gene can be oncogenic either by forming fusion with other genes, amplification of the gene or by having mutations. ALK rearrangement can either be detected by standard “fluorescence in situ hybridization (FISH)” or “immunohistochemistry (IHC)”. Objective of this study was to record the prevalence of ALK rearrangement in adenocarcinoma of Primary Lung origin and compare it with ALK-IHC staining. Data of 64 patients of lung adenocarcinoma from 2015-2017 was analyzed. All of the FFPE biopsies were tested for EGFR (qPCR) followed by ALK rearrangement (by FISH and IHC) on EGFR negative samples. Out of 64 samples, 21.8% (14) showed EGFR mutations and 14% (7/50) were positive for ALK rearrangement when checked by FISH. In IHC testing for ALK (FISH positive) 8% (4/50) showed positivity. In conclusion ALK-FISH positive cases are higher than other studies likely due to the relatively small sample size. FISH testing was found to be more sensitive than IHC; one reason may be the low level of ALK. Our study warrants that currently FISH remains the gold standard for screening of ALK gene rearrangements

PERFORMANCE ASSESSMENT AND JOB SATISFACTION OF SUPPORT STAFF IN ACADEMIC LIBRARIES

The purpose of current study was to investigate about the job performance and job satisfaction of support staff working in academic libraries of Lahore. Supporting staff is performing many imperative duties in academic libraries and their role in libraries is very important. The objective of current study was to investigate the job performance through job satisfaction, to test relationship between job performance and job satisfaction and to investigate the moderating effect of hurdles in work between job satisfaction and job performance. Quantitative approach was adopted and survey method was used to achieve the objective of the study. Questionnaire with Urdu translation was prepared to collect the data. Data was collected by visiting personally, through email and google form was also developed to collect the data. Higher Education Commission recognized academic universities of Lahore offering higher education programs was the population of current research. Participant of this study was supporting staff including “data entry operators, library assistants, library clerks, junior assistants, computer operators and shelvers etc.” those were performing their duties in government, semi-government and private sector universities main libraries of Lahore. Data was analyzed by using SPPS 22 version. The findings of this study revealed that supporting staff performing the duties in many major areas of library, like, Circulation, Technical, Cataloguing, Serial Management etc. The results showed positive impact of job satisfaction on job performance, but relationship between job satisfaction and performance found weak. The moderator like, low connectivity, down of computer, domestic issue, office environment effects the job performance of support staff

Barriers for the Adoption of Professional Development Courses (PDCs) in Public Sector University Libraries

Objective: The purpose of the study was to explore the major problems of Library Professionals working in the academic libraries of public sector universities regarding participation in Professional Development Courses (PDCs). Methodology: Public sector Universities affiliated with Higher Education Commission (HEC) Pakistan, located in Lahore, Pakistan were the target population. The Census sampling technique was adopted to accomplish the objectives of the conducted study. 67 respondents participated in the study. A quantitative research technique was used in the study. A self-created questionnaire was used to collect the data. Key Findings: The findings of the study revealed that a good number of respondents were willing to participate in development activities. But, due to numerous hurdles included shortage of library staff, poor allocation of budget for development activities and non-interesting attitude of organizational administration towards the professional development of Library professionals were the major barriers towards professional development activities. Rationale and Significance: Past literature indicated that no study was conducted covering the objective of barriers in professional development. No researcher made the proper investigation in the local scenario. It was highly desired to explore the barriers in participating in professional development activities in the local context. Implication: This study would contribute to the professional literature. It will also assist policy makers to take initiatives for the capacity building of library professionals

Real Exchange Rate and Trade Balance in Pakistan: An ARDL Co-integration Approach

The paper aims to find the long run and the short run relationships between trade balance, income, money supply, and real effective exchange rate for the period 1980 to 2011 in the case of Pakistan. The analysis is based on bounds testing approach to co-integration and error correction models, developed within an autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) framework. The results of the bounds test indicate a stable long-run relationship between the trade balance, income, money supply, and real effective exchange rate variables. The estimated results show that increase in the level of income and depreciation in the real effective exchange rate are negatively associated with trade balance in the long and short run. Our results show that the money supply determines the behaviour of the trade balance in the long run but not in the short run. We also use innovation accounting by simulating variance decompositions (VDC) and impulse response functions (IRF) for additional inferences and find long-run relationship between trade balance and real effective exchange rate and income variables. However, we do not find long-run relationship between trade balance and money supply (M2). Our findings also suggest that Marshal-Lerner Condition for trade balance does not hold