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.

Quantum Corrections for a Bardeen Regular Black Hole

In this paper, we study the quantum corrections to the thermodynamical quantities (temperature and entropy) for a Bardeen charged regular black hole by using a quantum tunneling approach over semiclassical approximations. Taking into account the quantum effects, the semiclassical Bekenstein-Hawking temperature and the area law are obtained, which are then used in the first law of thermodynamics to evaluate corrections to these quantities. It is interesting to mention here that these corrections reduce to the corresponding corrections for the Schwarzschild black hole when the charge $e=0$.Comment: 14 pages, accepted for publication in J. Korean Phys. So

The Role of Small and Medium-size Enterprises (SMEs) in the Socio-economic Stability of Karachi.

The purpose of this study is to identify the core constraints in financing of SMEs in Karachi that impede their growth and even undermine their liquidity and financial position. Literature review: The problems and constraints are faced by small and medium-size enterprises (SMEs) in Karachi with regard to access to financing. Along with Karachi, the other cities and areas in Pakistan are facing alike problems. Methods: This study is exploratory in nature and includes quantitative and qualitative data. Data was collected through well designed questionnaire from a sample group of 500 respondents of SMEs in Karachi. In addition, one-on-one formal and informal interviews were also taken from various businessmen and bankers. Conceptual Model: A conceptual model/ framework were devised to test and ascertain the statistical validity of the study. It includes dependent variable SME financing, and independent variables, financing constraints, functional/ internal barriers, government support and incentives, and SMEs growth and development. Findings: The findings revealed that most people/ SMEs feel reluctant to borrow from banks and financial institutes because of stringent collateral requirements, high mark up, lengthy and convoluted documentary process, and to some extent malpractices at banks and financial institutions. The preference of the lending institutions is to finance the large-scale corporate sector. The results of the data analysis confirmed profound relation of dependent and independent variables and accepted the hypotheses. Conclusion: A substantial portion of SMEs possesses great potential of growth. There exists unending opportunities to tap, while banking and financial system in Karachi and Pakistan enjoys enough liquidity but SMEs are unable to enjoy financial leverage because of various financial constraints, lack of support by government institutions and policy makers, and internal weaknesses and flaws of SMEs in managing their businesses. Finally recommendations were lodged.Small and Medium enterprise; constraints in financing; Socio-economic Sustainability

Characterizing nonlinearity in multiantenna multibeam transmitters

Abstract. In this thesis, effects of power amplifier (PA) distortion in multiantenna transmitter is studied. Input signal of each PA in the array is modelled by two or multiple tones to characterize the nonlinearity in terms of intermodulation distortion (IMD). In intermodulation, the phase of the nonlinearity depends on the phases of the corresponding input tones. Hence, in beamforming, progressive phase of the nonlinear components over the antenna elements creates a steered beam for the nonlinearity. Measurement setup is created to measure the phase and amplitude of the IMD components in the PA output. The theoretical polynomial relation of the IMD phase dependency on the input tones is validated by measurements. For flexible measurements, the setup is automatized by standard commands for programmable instruments. Second part of the thesis studies the array IMD by simulations in MATLAB. The used PA model is a memoryless polynomial fitted against the measured amplitude-to-amplitude modulation and amplitude-to-phase modulation responses of a real amplifier. The effects of nonlinearity are studied by using two tones to present each independent data stream in the PA inputs. Hence, in multibeam scenario, each data stream is modelled by two tones having individual phase and amplitude depending on the beamforming coefficients of given stream. The simulations are performed in frequency domain by utilizing the concept of spectral convolution to model the intermodulation distortion, and array factor to model the far-field radiation of the linear and nonlinear PA output components. By utilizing the simulator, PA nonlinearity is analyzed in single-beam and multi-beam scenarios by varying the steering angles, allocated stream powers and amplitude distribution over the PAs. It is observed that IMD terms which depend on only one stream are steered to same direction as the linear terms whereas the IMD terms depending on both streams spreads more in space. This has potentially positive impacts on the signal-to-distortion ratio of the streams observed in beamforming directions