Relative City Price Convergence in Pakistan: Empirical Evidence from Spatial GLS

The study estimates relative city price convergence using CPI data from July 2001 to June 2008 on 35 Pakistani cities. Two cities Lahore and Karachi are chosen to be the numeraire cities. The half life of relative city price shock has also been estimated. The study finds average half life of price shock to be less than 5 months but it varies from 1.3 to 68 months in the case of individual cities. The estimates of Spatial GLS are found to be lower than OLS which may imply that Spatial Correlations are important factor for the estimation of half life. Furthermore, the average half life of a price shock in Lahore is less than that of Karachi.Prices; convergence; Spatial GLS

Monetary policy restriction and dividend behavior of Pakistani firms: an empirical analysis

Studies upon impact of macro variables on firm’s dividend policy are very limited and specifically rare in Pakistan perspective. Main purpose of this research paper is to observe impact of restricted monetary policy on dividend behavior of Pakistani firms. During restricted monetary policy, cost of external funds increases and firms prefer to utilize internal funds leading to reduction in dividend payout. Behaviour of 100 listed firms, selected purposefully, has been observed for the period from 2001 to 2009 by using Lintner’ modified model.. During the research period of nine years, monetary policy has been gone through both loose and tight phases. Proposed model is dynamic one as lagged dependent variable has been used as explanatory variable. Due to certain limitations with selection of monetary policy instrument, overall stance of State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) in its annual reports has been used as a dummy variable in the model. Results of all the three estimations reveal almost same results. First lagged dividend has been proved to be most deterministic factor of dividend policy followed by current earnings. Monetary policy and lagged dividends interactive variables provide mixed results. First interactive variable has negative coefficients in all three, fixed effect, random effects and GMM, models but with insignificant p values. Second monetary policy interactive variable has positive coefficients with significant values in random effects and GMM model. Firms seem to follow relatively stable dividend policies with lower adjustment factor. As model is dynamic, GMM estimation is preferred. Monetary policy has not been observed as significant determinant of dividend policy of Pakistani firms.Dividend payment, Monetary Policy

Financial liberalization and macroeconomic performance, empirical evidence from selected Asian countries

Financially repressed economy cannot grow with an increasing growth rate. That’s why most of the developing countries move toward liberalized financial system. The basic objective of this paper is to provide a comparative analysis of Pakistan, China, and India financial sector liberalization and its impact on macroeconomic performance. This study uses Johansen co integration to provide cross country evidence of long run relationship between macroeconomic variables and financial openness. Results show that there is long run relation among financial openness and macro economic performance in all three countries. Financial liberalization has positive and significant effect on Pakistan macroeconomic performance while negative and significant effect on china economy. The relationship in India is positive but not significantFinancial liberalization, financial depth. Economic growth

Economics of Property Crime Rate in Punjab

This study intends to ascertain the impact of socio-economic, demographic and deterrent variables and the effect of technical criminal know-how and past criminal experience on property crime rate. The property crime equation comprises of the following independent variables: population density, unemployment rate, literacy rate, police strength and number of police proclaimed offenders in a society. The property crime equation has been estimated by using a time-series data set for Punjab from 1978 to 2012. We have applied Johansen cointegration approach to test the long run relationship among the variables. Empirical findings suggest that police strength has a deterrent effect while past criminal experience enhances property crime rate in Punjab. The study finds population density has a significant positive relationship while education has a significant negative relationship with property crime rate. Further we also find a negative relationship between unemployment and property crime which is supported by the concept of ‘consensus of doubt’ in the discipline of crime and economics. JEL Classification: D

Monetary Policy Restriction and Dividend Behaviour of Pakistani Firms: An Empirical Analysis

Dividend behaviour has extensively been reviewed by many researchers from time to time across different countries. Empirical evidences observed in most of the studies reveal equivocal results about dividend theories [Bhattacharyya (2007)]. Since, in absence of any unanimous findings, need for future research has not been restricted, theoretically. In developing countries like Pakistan, where limited research is available on corporate dividend policy, need for future research is more looked for. Most of the available research papers, address only firm specific determinants of dividend policy. Do macroeconomic variables influence corporate financing decisions? The need to address this question is the prime motive of this research paper. Major objective of this paper is to observe dividend behaviour of listed firms in Pakistan under monetary policy restrictions and this is the first attempt of its kind in Pakistan to the best of my Knowledge. This study is very relevant in present scenario since State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) has been persistently pursuing restricted monetary policy since 2005 to control inflation

Monetary Policy Announcements and Market Interest Rates in Pakistan: An Event Study Approach.

The objective of this paper is to analyse the impact of monetary policy (MP) announcements on market interest rates at different nine maturities (1/Week, 2/Week, 1/Month, 3/Months, 6/Months, 9/Months, 1/Year, 2/Years and 3/Years) in Pakistan. The Event window of 11 days and an estimation window of 250 days have been used for analysis. The study did not find significant evidence of ARCH effect in market interest rates at (1/Year, 2/Years and 3/Years) maturities. However, there is evidence of significant abnormal returns which shows a positive impact of monetary policy announcements on market interest rates at different nine maturities. Keywords: Monetary Policy, Market Interest Rates, Normal Rates, Abnormal Rates, GARCH, ARIM

Momentum Effect: Empirical Evidence from Karachi Stock Exchange

Capital market efficiency and the prediction of future stock prices are the most thought-provoking and ferociously debated areas in finance. The followers of traditional financial theory strongly believe that the markets are efficient in pricing the financial instruments. This view became popular after Fama’s work on the Efficient Market Hypothesis. But before 1990s, wide-ranging financial literature documented that stock prices, to some extent, are predictable. Many psychologists, economist and the journalists are of the view that general tendency of individuals is to overreact to the information. De Bondt and Thaler (1985) studies this view of experimental psychology that whether such behaviour matters at the market level or not. They found out that stock prices will overreact to information, and suggested that contrarian strategies buy the past losers and sell the past winners, earn abnormal returns. They extended the holding period from 3 to 5 years and provide the evidence of long term returns reversal. Jegadeesh (1990) and Lehmann (1990) supported the evidence of return reversal in short term, i.e. from one week to one month. They suggested that the contrarian strategies having holding period of one week to one month earned the significant abnormal return. Lo and Mac Kinalay (1990) objected on the ground that a major portion of this abnormal return, reported by Jegadeesh (1990) and Lehmann (1990), is due to the delayed reaction of stock prices to common factors rather than to overreaction. Some other researchers pointed out some other reasons of this abnormal stock returns i.e. short-term pressure on stock prices and absence of liquidity in the market rather than overreaction

Relative City Price Convergence in Pakistan: Empirical Evidence from Spatial GLS

The study estimates relative city price convergence using CPI data from July 2001 to June 2008 on 35 Pakistani cities. Two cities Lahore and Karachi are chosen to be the numeraire cities. The half life of relative city price shock has also been estimated. The study finds average half life of price shock to be less than 5 months but it varies from 1.3 to 68 months in the case of individual cities. The estimates of Spatial GLS are found to be lower than OLS which may imply that Spatial Correlations are important factor for the estimation of half life. Furthermore, the average half life of a price shock in Lahore is less than that of Karachi

Electrical conductivity retention and electrochemical activity of CSA doped graphene/gold nanoparticle@ polyaniline composites

AbstractThis paper reports the synthesis of CTAB mediated CSA doped PANI and GN/GNP@ PANI composite nanofibers. The as synthesized composite nanofibers were examined by TEM, SEM, XRD, Raman spectroscopy; UV–visible diffused reflectance spectroscopy and TGA. The CTAB mediated CSA doped composite nanofibers showed 59% higher DC electrical conductivity at ambient temperature than that of PANI, which might be due to the enhancement in the mobility of the charge carriers and reduction in hopping distance in the composite system. The CTAB mediated CSA doped composite nanofibers compared to PANI was observed to be showing enhanced DC electrical conductivity retention after various cycles of heating, suggesting an enhancement in thermal stability of the composite structure, which could be attributed to the synergistic effect of GN, GNP and PANI. Additionally, the composite nanofibers showed greater electrochemical activity and better capacitive performance and reduced optical bandgap than that of PANI

Financial liberalization and macroeconomic performance, empirical evidence from selected Asian countries

Financially repressed economy cannot grow with an increasing growth rate. That’s why most of the developing countries move toward liberalized financial system. The basic objective of this paper is to provide a comparative analysis of Pakistan, China, and India financial sector liberalization and its impact on macroeconomic performance. This study uses Johansen co integration to provide cross country evidence of long run relationship between macroeconomic variables and financial openness. Results show that there is long run relation among financial openness and macro economic performance in all three countries. Financial liberalization has positive and significant effect on Pakistan macroeconomic performance while negative and significant effect on china economy. The relationship in India is positive but not significan