Determinants of Low Birth Weight a Cross Sectional Study: In Case of Pakistan

This study investigates the impact of different independent factors on birth weight of infant. The Demographic and Health Survey of Pakistan (PDHS) 2014 data are used for empirical analysis. Binomial Logit Regression is employed for analysis. The analysis revealed the significant relationship of birth weight with mother’s education; Mother’s working status, wealth index of family, gender of child, Place of residence, age of mother at first birth with birth weight of infant. The analysis also revealed that birth-interval, birth order and institutional place of delivery reduce the birth weight children. The male children are more likely to be suffering of low birth weight as compare to female children. As far as mother’s education level, her employment and wealth status increases the risk of low birth weight decreases. It has important policy implications that at least mother’s education should be part of the education policy of Pakistan. The proper medical facilities should be provided at rural areas to decrease the risk of low birth weight and child mortality as well. From the policy perspective the education on birth order and birth interval should be arranged for awareness of parents. For the long-run the socioeconomic status of the household expressed by wealth index is needed

Determinants of Low Birth Weight a Cross Sectional Study: In Case of Pakistan

This study investigates the impact of different independent factors on birth weight of infant. The Demographic and Health Survey of Pakistan (PDHS) 2014 data are used for empirical analysis. Binomial Logit Regression is employed for analysis. The analysis revealed the significant relationship of birth weight with mother’s education; Mother’s working status, wealth index of family, gender of child, Place of residence, age of mother at first birth with birth weight of infant. The analysis also revealed that birth-interval, birth order and institutional place of delivery reduce the birth weight children. The male children are more likely to be suffering of low birth weight as compare to female children. As far as mother’s education level, her employment and wealth status increases the risk of low birth weight decreases. It has important policy implications that at least mother’s education should be part of the education policy of Pakistan. The proper medical facilities should be provided at rural areas to decrease the risk of low birth weight and child mortality as well. From the policy perspective the education on birth order and birth interval should be arranged for awareness of parents. For the long-run the socioeconomic status of the household expressed by wealth index is needed

Volatility Modelling and Dynamic Linkages between Pakistani and Leading Foreign Stock Markets: A Multivariate GARCH Analysis

It is essential for financial institutions and academicians to understand volatility spillover and financial market returns. However, previous studies examined the effects of direct spillover only and ignored those of the newly emerging stock markets. Therefore, this study attempts to estimate the time-varying volatility of Pakistani and leading foreign stock markets. It also tries to explore the direct and indirect volatility spillover effect between Pakistani and eight leading foreign stock markets. Daily data were used from nine international equity markets (KSE 100, NIKKEI 225, HIS, S&P 500, NASDAQ 100, DOW JONES, GADXI, FTSE 350 and DFMGI) for the period between 2005 and 2016. The univariate GARCH and GJR models were employed for analysing volatility, and the multivariate GARCH Diagonal BEKK model was used to explore direct and indirect volatility spillover effects. In order to analyse the volatility spillover effect during and after the global financial crisis period, the data were categorised into two periods: between 2005 and 2009 and between 2010 and 2016. The Chow break-point test was also employed to identify structural breaks in return series due to global financial crises. Direct and indirect spillover effects were found between KSE100, S&P 500, NASDAQ 100, DOW JONES and DFMGI. Keywords: Volatility, Spillover, Equity Market, Financial Crisis and GARC

Time Varying Volatility Modeling of Pakistani and leading foreign stock markets

This study estimates the volatility of Pakistani and leading foreign stock markets. Daily data are used from nine international equity markets (KSE 100, NIKKEI 225, HIS, S&P 500, NASDAQ 100, DOW JONES, GADXI, FTSE 350 and DFMGI) for the period of Jan, 2005 to Nov, 2014. The whole data set is used for modeling of time varying volatility of stock markets. Univariate GARCH type models i.e. GARCH and GJR are employed for volatility modeling of Pakistani and leading foreign stock markets. The residual analysis also employed to check the validity of models. Our study brings important conclusions for financial institutions, portfolio managers, market players and academician to diagnose the nature and level of linkages between the financial markets

Time Varying Volatility Modeling of Pakistani and leading foreign stock markets

This study estimates the volatility of Pakistani and leading foreign stock markets. Daily data are used from nine international equity markets (KSE 100, NIKKEI 225, HIS, S&P 500, NASDAQ 100, DOW JONES, GADXI, FTSE 350 and DFMGI) for the period of Jan, 2005 to Nov, 2014. The whole data set is used for modeling of time varying volatility of stock markets. Univariate GARCH type models i.e. GARCH and GJR are employed for volatility modeling of Pakistani and leading foreign stock markets. The residual analysis also employed to check the validity of models. Our study brings important conclusions for financial institutions, portfolio managers, market players and academician to diagnose the nature and level of linkages between the financial markets

Environmentally Friendly Degradations Technology Breakthrough

This editorial paper presents a brief review of the 11 selected papers recently published: nine from Energies and two from other journals, and their citations are compared [...

Environmentally Friendly Degradations Technology Breakthrough

This editorial paper presents a brief review of the 11 selected papers recently published: nine from Energies and two from other journals, and their citations are compared [...

The Impact of the Environment, Digital–Social Inclusion, and Institutions on Inclusive Growth: A Conceptual and Empirical Analysis

Though the literature on inclusive growth is rich, further well-founded studies are required on the issue of sustainable inclusive growth. This paper seeks to summarize the role of environmental degradation in inclusive growth based on carbon dioxide emissions, and its interaction with factors such as social inclusion, digital inclusion, and institutions. One of the findings derived from the generalized method of moments (GMM) model is that sustainable inclusive growth can be achieved in all three income groups from the global data while focusing on institutional quality, digital inclusion, and social inclusion. Simultaneously, the harmful effects of carbon dioxide emissions can be circumscribed. The major recommendations of this study are that efforts to achieve sustainable inclusive growth should combine mutually reinforcing policies, namely: (i) promoting environmentally focused sustainable inclusive growth with socio-digital inclusivity; (ii) ensuring a strong institutional playing field for achieving inclusive growth; and (iii) strengthening macroeconomic policies, which means controlling inflation, and enhancing trade openness and literacy levels

Role of Islamic Banking during COVID-19 on Political and Financial Events: Application of Impulse Indicator Saturation

This paper attempts to detect the unavoidable impacts of COVID-19 on geopolitical and financial events related to Islamic banking and the finance sector in Pakistan. It considers only those major events that triggered imbalances in the equity prices of selected Islamic banks. Employed here is the GARCH model, used to predict the volatility series using daily data from January 2007 to July 2020. The Impulse Indicator Saturation (IIS) helps to identify the structural breaks due to COVID-19, as well as the effects of political and financial events on the returns and volatility series of Islamic banks. The results indicate that all the events due to COVID-19 are significant. While 19 out of 21 political and financial events impacted the returns and volatility series, there were only 2 political events out of 18 that showed no significant effect on the returns and the volatility series. The state’s and Islamic banks’ policymakers can use these results to build an effective and sustainable financial policy regarding Islamic finance and the banking sector

Another Prospective on Real Exchange Rate and the Traded Goods Prices: Revisiting Balassa–Samuelson Hypothesis

This paper proposes a new variant and reinvestigates the validity of the Balassa–Samuelson (BS) hypothesis for nine East and South Asian countries under new specifications. The BS hypothesis is often criticized for one of its fundamental, but oversimplified assumptions related to Purchasing Power Parity (PPP) holding which can be confirmed for cronss-country tradables’ prices, implying nontraded-sector prices are solely responsible for inducing trend deviations in real exchange rate. The assumption, when empirically tested, does not always hold valid, revealing a price difference in tradables for Asian countries against the world (U.S.), a potential driver of their trend in real exchange rate deviations (appreciation). A new approach based on Fully Modified OLS (FMOLS) and Dynamic OLS (DOLS) is used to estimate the long-run BS coefficients, while the error correction mechanism is employed to estimate the short-run estimates. These results motivated us to allow for the inexistence of PPP for cross-country tradables; the standard form of the BS model is then tested in its relaxed form using time-series and panel data econometric tests. Despite a relaxing of the BS model in favor of tradables’ price deviation from PPP, the results are not sufficiently supportive of the BS hypothesis. These findings hold strong economic implications for Asia, suggesting that intercountry sectoral productivity bias of regional economies with the world does not necessarily exert substantial effects on their long-run real exchange rates. Additionally, contrary to the core belief of the BS model, intercountry tradables’ price differentials are found to substantially explain real exchange rate movements away from their long-run equilibrium