Pakistan, politics and political business cycles

This paper studies whether in Pakistan the dynamic behavior of unemployment, inflation, budget deficit and real GDP growth is systematically affected by the timing of elections. We cover the period from 1973-2009. Our results can be summarized as follows: 1. Unemployment tends to be lower in pre-election periods and tends to increase immediately after elections, perhaps as a result of politically motivated employment schemes. 2. In ation tend to be lower in preelection periods, perhaps as a result of pre-electoral price regulation. 3. We find election year increases in the governmental budget deficit, financed by heavy government borrowings from the central bank and banking sector. 4. Real GDP growth and real governmental investment growth declines during pre and post election terms. --Opportunistic Political Business Cycle,Fiscal Policy,Macroeconomics,Elections,Asia,Pakistan

Bread, peace and the attrition of power: Economic events and German election results

Aggregate votes for incumbent parties in post-war Germany were determined by the weighted-average growth of real per capita disposable income. Each percentage point of per capita real disposable income growth sustained over the legislative term yielded approximately two percentage points of votes in Germany. No other economic variables add value or significantly perturb the coefficients of our model. However, attrition of power reduced the vote share in election years 1961, 1994 and 1998. --bread and peace model,elections,vote share,real per capita disposable income growth

Characterization of thermophilic β-Glucosidase of rhizospheric bacterial strain (LSKB15) isolated from Cholistan Desert, Pakistan

Fifty thermophilic bacterial strains isolated from rhizospheric soil of Cholistan desert, Pakistan, and designated as LSKB01-LSKB50 were screened for β-glucosidase gene (bgl) belonging to glycoside hydrolase family 1 (GH 1) using PCR technique. Subsequently, the same strains were screened for extracellular β-glucosidase production using esculin as substrate. All fifty strains were shown to be amplified for conserved region of bgl gene and to secrete extracellular β-glucosidase. One strain (LSKB15) secreted relative high amount of this enzyme as indicating by size of ferric-esculetin precipitate. This strain was further cultivated on cellulose containing media and β-glucosidase was purified by ammonium sulfate, dialysis and gel filtration chromatography. The purified enzyme showed an optimal temperature of 60°C and an optimal pH of 7. It also showed excellent temperature and pH stability retaining > 90% activity after incubation for 2 h at pH 5-8 and 40-60°C. Finally, the purified enzyme was run on Native-PAGE and subsequently incubated in phosphate buffer containing 5 mM of 4-methylumbelliferyl-β-D-glucoside (4-MUG) for 15 min at 50°C and visualized by UV light as white band. We concluded that thermophilic LSKB15 β- glucosidase may work with other cellulase to degrade available cellulose synthesized by plant and the properties exhibited by it such as high temperature and pH stability pointed out its potential industrial importance

Manipulating cues in involuntary autobiographical memory: verbal cues are more effective than pictorial cues

In two experiments, pictorial cues were compared with their verbal labels to assess their effectiveness in eliciting involuntary autobiographical memories. Cues were relatively complex in Experiment 1 (e.g., relaxing on a beach) and simple objects in Experiment 2 (e.g., a ball). In both experiments, participants went through a vigilance task in which they were presented with frequent nontarget and rare target visual stimuli. Pictures or their corresponding verbal labels were also displayed on both target and nontarget stimuli, but participants were told that these were irrelevant to the task. They were asked to interrupt the vigilance task whenever they became aware of task-unrelated mental contents and to report them. In both experiments, more involuntary memories were elicited in the verbal cue condition, rather than in the pictorial cue condition. This result is discussed in relation to previous work that highlighted the greater effectiveness of verbal cues in memory tasks

Modifying the frequency and characteristics of involuntary autobiographical memories

Recent studies have shown that involuntary autobiographical memories (IAMs) can be elicited in the laboratory. Here we assessed whether the specific instructions given to participants can change the nature of the IAMs reported, in terms of both their frequency and their characteristics. People were either made or not made aware that the aim of the study was to examine IAMs. They reported mental contents either whenever they became aware of them or following a predetermined schedule. Both making people aware of the aim of the study and following a fixed schedule of interruptions increased significantly the number of IAMs reported. When aware of the aim of the study, participants reported more specific memories that had been retrieved and rehearsed more often in the past. These findings demonstrate that the number and characteristics of memories depend on the procedure used. Explanations of these effects and their implications for research on IAMs are discussed