Unemployment, economic status and ethnic politics: A case study of Karachi

Regional-based quota in public sector employment was always considered as one of the important cause of the ethnic politics in Pakistan and particularly in Karachi. The majority of educated youth and middle classers in Pakistan belong to the urban areas and big cities where public sector employment is a frictional part of the total employment. However, households’ economic statuses in those areas are closely related with the employment status of the households’ members. This study has one objective only: to test the hypothesis that socio-economic variation between the ethnic groups was the origin of the emerging ethnic politics in Karachi. The disparities in income, employment and social status have been compared between the nine ethnic groups of Karachi. It is noteworthy that statistical evidences have rejected the hypothesis that rise in ethnic politics was a consequence of socio-economic discrepancies between the ethnic groups.Household income, Gini coeffecient, ethnic politics, unemployment

SOUTH ASIAN ECONOMIC ZONE: EXTENSION AND POSSIBILITIES

Different versions of the South Asian Economic Zone has been discussing in the literature. The basic and important justification behind the formation of South Asian Free Economic Zone is not directly concerned with the economic benefits; it is justified on the basis of cultural and historical relations. . Three different propositions for the socio-economic collaboration between India and Muslim World were discussed in this article. It was concluded that India would has to opt one of the two options: a merger with the Muslim World or playing a role as an agent of the Western bloc against China and Muslim World.Regionalization, Trade Blocs, Free Trade Regime

Flow of portfolio investment among the Muslim countries: modelling and possibilities

The objective of this study is to identify the thematic areas for cooperation among the Muslim countries in the field of portfolio investment. The study covers the investment principles of return maximization, risk minimization and diversification. The core area of the study is to explore the investment opportunities in Muslim countries through geographical and sectoral diversification to provide greater investment security, risk minimization and profit maximization. To identify the scope of Muslim world and the economic implications of the cross boarder portfolio investment are the natural ingredients of this study. In the beginning, the study summarizes the economic and financial issues of the Muslim worldPortfolio Investment; FDI; Financial Theory; Muslim World

Comparison of CMS Resistive Plate Chambers performance during LHC RUN-1 and RUN-2

The Resistive Plate Chambers detector system at the CMS experiment at the LHC provides robustness and redundancy to the muon trigger. A total of 1056 double-gap chambers cover the pseudo-rapidity region < 1.6. The main detector parameters and environmental conditions are constantly and closely monitored to achieve operational stability and high quality data in the harsh conditions of the second run period of the LHC with center-of-mass energy of 13 TeV. First results of overall detector stability with 2015 data and comparisons with data from the LHC RUN-1 period at 8 TeV are presented

How monetary policy affects poverty: nexus and consequences

This case study provides some interesting insights and phenomena. It was observed that how monetary policy badly affected the poverty situation in Pakistan. This study covers three important aspects of the socio-economic changes in Pakistan in the recent past. First it describes the macroeconomic growth in the different political regimes. Second aspect of the study is to assess the poverty levels in Pakistan. In this part, we have compared the poverty in Pakistan with the selected countries and trends over the period have also been shown. Third aspect of the study is to identify the impact and contribution of monetary policy in poverty and income distribution.monetary policy; poverty; inflation

Stock market consequences of macro economic fundamentals

It is concluded in the study that the Valuation Ratio will be independent from the Equities if equity-elasticity is equal to one. However, Market Capitalization depends on the investment in equities and the market liquidity. The model has been tested in the context of Pakistan and the Monetary and Fiscal policies have been found as the significant determinants of the Market Capitalization.Co-integration; Granger’s Causality; Liquidity-Elasticity; Equity-Elasticity; Market Capitalization; Simulation

Business competitiveness in Muslim World: role of governance and higher education

The main objective of this study is to compare Muslim countries with the rest of world in terms of the effectiveness and efficiency of the factors of competitiveness. Another objective of this paper is to determine the factors of competitiveness of the nations. The study has also assessed the impacts of improvement in political and corporate governances of the institutions, technological advancement and higher education on the business competitiveness. The World Competitiveness Index constructed by the World Economic Forum and World Banks statistics on aggregate savings and investment were used to estimate the regression parameters. It was hypothesized that Muslim world is significantly different from the rest of world in terms of the effectiveness and efficiency of the factors of competitiveness. The role of innovations and knowledge creating activities in determining of business competitiveness was not found statistically significant in Muslim world; it was highly significant in case of the rest of world. It was concluded that investment and technology readiness affects the competitiveness in Muslim countries in different ways. It was recommended that Muslim countries should improve their governance of the corporate and political institutions and the higher education to achieve the efficiency and higher targets of competitiveness.Competitiveness; Innovations; Higher Education; Efficiency; Governance

Is there a Vicious circle in Muslim World? Trade competitiveness and investment strategies

The study tests the existence of a vicious circle of the lack of investable funds, weaker technological advancement and business competitiveness in Muslim countries. Its second objective is to quantify the magnitude of variations in competitiveness between the Muslim world and the rest of world. A model was established to quantify the linkages between the financial resources, technological advancement, business sophistication and competitiveness. The results are based on 111 countries, 30 out of which belong to Muslim world. The governance of the political and corporate institutions, higher education and technology readiness are classified as significant factors of the business competitiveness. It was concluded that governance, technological readiness and higher education are the important and major factors of business competitiveness, while investment was not identified as major determinant of the competitiveness. The study rejects the hypothesis of existence of the vicious cycle in Muslim world. It concludes that Muslim world can achieve the higher target of business competitiveness and ultimately the sustainable economic development by improvement in the higher education and institutional governance.Muslim world; Competitiveness; Globalization; Governance; Vicious circle;