On Overinvoicing of Exports in Pakistan

Whereas the policy incentives were designed to promote exports from Pakistan, the incentive system instead led to illicit export practices, i.e., export overinvoicing due to the weaknesses of implementation. Such practices resulted in a significant financial loss to the country and undermined the effectiveness of the export-promoting policy. This paper has determined the presence of overinvoicing of exports in Pakistan and the geographic and product-wise patterns in export overinvoicing. The paper has applied the ‘partner-country data comparison’ technique. Empirical findings confirm the strong presence of export overinvoicing across trading partner countries and products. This conclusion is further supported by the evidence of a significant difference between the duty-drawback rate and the premium on foreign exchange in the kerb market. Convincing presence of export overinvoicing is the basis for a set of policy recommendations made in the paper.

PENGARUH KEPEMIMPINAN ENTREPRENEUR, MOTIVASI DAN LINGKUNGAN KERJA TERHAPAP KINERJA KARYAWAN RUMAH BATIK DOLLY SURABAYA

ABSTRAK Penelitian ini bertujuan untuk menguji dan menganalisis pengaruh kepemimpinan entrepreneur, motivasi dan lingkungan kerja terhadap kinerja karyawan rumah batik dolly di Surabaya. Sumber data pada penelitian ini berupa data primer yang diperoleh dengan menyebar kuisioner kepada responden yaitu karyawan rumah batik dolly. Populasi dalam penelitian ini diperoleh dengan menggunakan teknik sampling jenuh atau teknik total sampling yaitu teknik dengan mengambil seluruh sampel yang dijadikan sebagai objek penelitian. Total keseluruhan sampel yaitu sebanyak 40 orang karyawan rumah batik dolly Surabaya. Metode analisis yang digunakan adalah analisis regresi linier berganda yang bertujuan untuk menghitung besarnya koefesien regresi guna menunjukan besarnya variabel kepemimpinan entrepreneur, motivasi dan lingkungan kerja terhadap kinerja karyawan. Hasil penelitian ini menunjukan bahwa kepemimpinan entrepreneur berpengaruh positif dan signifikan terhadap kinerja karyawan dengan tingkat signifikansi sebesar 0,002. Variabel motivasi berpengaruh positif dan signifikan terhadap kinerja karyawan dengan tingkat signifikansi sebesar 0,004. Dan variabel lingkungan kerja berpengaruh positif dan signifikan terhadap kinerja karyawan dengan tingkat signifikansi sebesar 0,005. Kata Kunci: Kepemimpinan Entrepreneur, Motivasi, Lingkungan Kerja dan Kinerja Karyawa

EMERGING COMPUTING BASED NOVEL SOLUTIONS FOR DESIGN OF LOW POWER CIRCUITS

The growing applications for IoT devices have caused an increase in the study of low power consuming circuit design to meet the requirement of devices to operate for various months without external power supply. Scaling down the conventional CMOS causes various complications to design due to CMOS properties, therefore various non-conventional CMOS design techniques are being proposed that overcome the limitations. This thesis focuses on some of those emerging and novel low power design technique namely Adiabatic logic and low power devices like Magnetic Tunnel Junction (MTJ) and Carbon Nanotube Field Effect transistor (CNFET). Circuits that are used for large computations (multipliers, encryption engines) that amount to maximum part of power consumption in a whole chip are designed using these novel low power techniques

Students’ Perception of Motivation to Learn: Does an Avatar Motivate?

Context: This research investigates students’ perception of motivation to learn among students at one of the public university in Malaysia. Students were provided with an avatar as well as an avatar environment called the Avatar Hall. The Avatar Hall was developed in order for the student to access their avatar. Although other studies have been carried out when an avatar is constantly displayed on the screen, while students having their learning with Computer-based Learning (CBL) environment, where learning is conducted fully on the CBL, this research is primarily focused on the context of having an avatar when it is not displayed constantly to the students when students is having their learning in conventional learning environment (attending lecture). Aim: The aim of the research is to investigate the effect of having an avatar alongside learning activities. Method: This research is an empirical research where students have been given access to the Avatar Hall alongside their learning activities. There were two experiments conducted in this research, Experiment 1 and Experiment 2. A total number of 71 first year students from the Department of Cognitive Science and 45 first year students from the Department of Human Resource Development were selected to participate in this research. These students were further grouped into three: human character avatar (treatment 1), text avatar (treatment 2) and non-avatar (control group). As the name implied, students who were in treatment 1 will be offered a human-type avatar character, whereas students in treatment 2 had a text as their avatar. Students in the control group did not get any of avatar character or avatar name. The Avatar Hall was developed and categorised into two: attribute-based environment (AbE) and ranking-based environment (RbE). The AbE environment was designed for treatment 1 whereas the RbE environment was designed for treatment 2. In the AbE environment, students were offered an opportunity to view and personalise their human avatar character. Students who were in the RbE environment, on the other hand, were presented of a ranking board where their text avatar was placed. The research instrument used in this research was a motivation inventory, designed and developed by Ryan and Deci (2008). This inventory was modified according to the needs of the research. It was used to measure students' perceptions of motivation to learn. The inventory was consisted of Likert-type statements, each with five choices of response from "strongly disagree" to "strongly agree". Results: The results from the statistical analysis indicate that students in Experiment 2 were more motivated than students in Experiment 1, specifically from the human character avatar group. In addition, students who used the text avatar in Experiment 1 were accessing the Avatar Hall more often than students who used the text avatar in Experiment 2. Conclusions: This research has shown that having a human character avatar, in comparison with a text avatar and non-avatar, in their learning environment does give an opportunity to offer an alternative factor to motivate students to learn, even though the existence of an avatar and the Avatar Hall environments was applied in the conventional learning environment

On Overinvoicing of Exports in Pakistan

Whereas the policy incentives were designed to promote exports from Pakistan, the incentive system instead led to illicit export practices, i.e., export overinvoicing due to the weaknesses of implementation. Such practices resulted in a significant financial loss to the country and undermined the effectiveness of the export-promoting policy. This paper has determined the presence of overinvoicing of exports in Pakistan and the geographic and product-wise patterns in export overinvoicing. The paper has applied the ‘partner-country data comparison’ technique. Empirical findings confirm the strong presence of export overinvoicing across trading partner countries and products. This conclusion is further supported by the evidence of a significant difference between the duty-drawback rate and the premium on foreign exchange in the kerb market. Convincing presence of export overinvoicing is the basis for a set of policy recommendations made in the paper

Ex-post effects of circuit breakers in crisis and calm markets: long horizon evidence from wide-band Malaysian price limits

Purpose – Despite regulatory claims of straitening volatility and preventing crashes, evidences on circuit breakers’ ability to achieve so are nonconclusive. While previous scholars studies general performances of circuit breakers, the authors examine whether Malaysian price limits aggravate volatility, impede price discovery, and interfere with trading activities in both tranquil and stressful periods. Design/methodology/approach – The study uses a combination of parametric and nonparametric techniques consistent with Kim and Rhee (1997) to examine the major ex-post hypotheses in circuit breaker research. Findings – For calm markets, the authors find significant success of upper limits in tempering volatility with low trading interference. Lower limits show mixed results. Conversely, in crisis markets limits fare poorly in nearly all aspects, particularly for lower limits. Practical implications – Ramifications of the paper’s findings are discussed through highlighting the asymmetric nature of price limits’ ex-post effects. The paper also contributes to regulatory debate surrounding the quest for an optimal price limit. Originality/value – The paper is the first of its kind in documenting long-horizon evidence of ex-post effects of a wide-band price limit. Moreover, the paper is unique in its approach in bifurcating circuit breaker performance along the line of market stability periods

Lead-lag relationship between Bitcoin and Ethereum: evidence from hourly and daily data

This paper investigates lead-lag relationship between heavyweight cryptocurrencies Bitcoin and Ethereum. Traditional studies of information flow between markets preponderate on cash vs. futures, whereby researchers are interested in the stabilizing impact of futures on spot markets. While interest in the same relationship in the nascent cryptocurrency sphere is emerging, little is known regarding price leadership between these assets. In this paper, we employ a battery of statistical tests—VECM, Granger Causality, ARMA, ARDL and Wavelet Coherence—to identify price leadership between the two crypto heavyweights Bitcoin and Ethereum. Based on one year hourly and daily data from August 2017 through to September 2018, our tests yield varied results but largely suggest bi-directional causality between the two assets. Moreover, the results indicate that intraday crypto traders can barely exploit Bitcoin-Ethereum hourly or daily price discovery process to their advantage

Conceptual framework for IFRS adoption, audit quality and earnings management : the case of Bangladesh

This study propose to explore the moderating role of audit quality on the relationship between IFRS adoption and earnings management as well as the effect of IFRS adoption on earnings management in the context of Bangladesh, as developing economy. Earlier literature document that the relationship among IFRS adoption, audit quality and earnings management are not conclusive. In case of IFRS adoption, it is incoherent which may be the result of difference in culture, practices and legal strength of the country. This study considers discretionary accruals as proxy of earnings management which is measured by the extended modified Jones model. Moreover, the influence of audit quality on the association between IFRS adoption and earnings management is also proposed to investigate. This study expects to explore the effect of IFRS adoption on earnings management in the context of developing country, like Bangladesh. It may be informative for the reader to understand the outcome of IFRS adoption, audit quality on earnings management in developing economy.peer-reviewe

Qualified audit reports of local authorities in the northern states of Malaysia

The reliability of information presented in the financial reports of local authorities is of utmost importance to enable the public to measure their performance in terms of efficiency and effectiveness in using public resources. The task to provide such an assurance lies with the Auditor General, who has been entrusted to enforce the auditing compliance regulations. A certificate in the form of “unqualified,” “qualified,” “adverse,” or “disclaimer” accompanied by a report on the financial affairs of the local authorities concerned will be issued after the Auditor General completes the audit of the local authorities’ financial statements. Our study on 14 local authorities comprising municipal and district councils in the Malaysian States of Perlis, Kedah and Penang found that the Qualified Certificate is the common type of audit certificate issued to the local authorities concerned during the period 1997-2001(inclusive of both years). Discrepancies in “Fixed Assets Register” ranked first among the audit incidents that led towards non-compliance to the audit procedures. This was followed by discrepancies in “Other Receivables” and “Cash Flow Statements” which ranked second and third positions respectively. Our finding also shows that size does not grant any advantage to the bigger local authority in reducing the number of audit incidents