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

Modeling of Thermally Aware Carbon Nanotube and Graphene Based Post CMOS VLSI Interconnect

This work studies various emerging reduced dimensional materials for very large-scale integration (VLSI) interconnects. The prime motivation of this work is to find an alternative to the existing Cu-based interconnect for post-CMOS technology nodes with an emphasis on thermal stability. Starting from the material modeling, this work includes material characterization, exploration of electronic properties, vibrational properties and to analyze performance as a VLSI interconnect. Using state of the art density functional theories (DFT) one-dimensional and two-dimensional materials were designed for exploring their electronic structures, transport properties and their circuit behaviors. Primarily carbon nanotube (CNT), graphene and graphene/copper based interconnects were studied in this work. Being reduced dimensional materials the charge carriers in CNT(1-D) and in graphene (2-D) are quantum mechanically confined as a result of this free electron approximation fails to explain their electronic properties. For same reason Drude theory of metals fails to explain electronic transport phenomena. In this work Landauer transport theories using non-equilibrium Green function (NEGF) formalism was used for carrier transport calculation. For phonon transport studies, phenomenological Fourier’s heat diffusion equation was used for longer interconnects. Semi-classical BTE and Landauer transport for phonons were used in cases of ballistic phonon transport regime. After obtaining self-consistent electronic and thermal transport coefficients, an equivalent circuit model is proposed to analyze interconnects’ electrical performances. For material studies, CNTs of different variants were analyzed and compared with existing copper based interconnects and were found to be auspicious contenders with integrational challenges. Although, Cu based interconnect is still outperforming other emerging materials in terms of the energy-delay product (1.72 fJ-ps), considering the electromigration resistance graphene Cu hybrid interconnect proposed in this dissertation performs better. Ten times more electromigration resistance is achievable with the cost of only 30% increase in energy-delay product. This unique property of this proposed interconnect also outperforms other studied alternative materials such as multiwalled CNT, single walled CNT and their bundles

Naomi Klein. The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism. New York: Henry Holt and Metropolitan Books. 2007. 500 pages. Hardcover. US$18.11.

Naomi Klein is an award-winning journalist, and his book The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism is a bestseller. Klein argues that free market philosophy professed by the Nobel laureate Milton Friedman and may others and adopted by the international financial institutions faced a hard time while being put to practice. Accordingly, crises were engineered in some countries to provide an environment in which unpopular reforms could be carried through. In some countries natural disasters were used as an occasion to push through the free market reform agenda. Klein’s basic thesis is that unpopular market reforms have typically been carried out at a time when the shock-stricken people were too disoriented to take even a clear stand on the reforms, much less to put up a stiff resistance to these. Policy changes that followed the Falklands war of 1982, the Tiananmen square event of 1989, the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, the Asian Financial Crisis of 1997, and of course the more recent Global Financial Crisis are all examples of pushing through the liberal reform agenda after the man-made crises had disoriented the public at large or had softened their stand on the free market

Low Dose of Pizotifen in Migraine Prevention: A Comparison with Topiramate

Background & Objective: Pizotifen is an alternative option for prophylactic treatment of migraine headache. This study aims to compare the efficacy and safety of pizotifen with topiramate; one of the most-widely used drugs in migraine prevention. Methods: This was a single blind, randomized, parallel-group study. After a 4-week baseline evaluation, patients with episodic migraine were randomly assigned to get either to piramate or pizotifen for a period of 12 weeks. Patients were asked to fill a headache diary through the study. Headache characteristics and the possible side effects were evaluated throughout and at the end of trial. Results: Sixty patients aged 20 to 49 were recruited to the study. With both drugs, the frequency, intensity and duration of headaches were significantly reduced (p < 0.05). Except for headache duration, pizotifen was significantly superior to  topiramate in the headache parameters assessed. Total reported side effects were initially higher inpatients who received pizotifen (37 vs. 22; P= 0.038); however, persistent side effects were lower for pizotifen (6 vs. 10; P= 0.22).Conclusions: The results of this study suggest that pizotifen is a safe and effective drug in migraine prevention

Factors affecting the reliability of self-estimates in answering personality questionnaires

Je noted a striking contrast between the reliability and validity of personality questionnaires; their reliability has been consistently reported to be fairly high, but their validity has been generally found to be poor. We traced this divergence to the errors of self- estimate on which the questionnaire responses ordinarily depend. A tendency to make flattering and fictitious responses was found to have been frequently suggested in previous investigations.It was presumed to account for the errors of selfestimate.We noted that the tendency to fake responses was not of necessity conscious and deliberate. It also seemed to influence a self -rater sometimes without his knowledge. This suggested the operation of some persistent factors of distortion which affect the questionnaire responses in a uniform manner and thus account for their high self -consistency.A survey of the allied literature suggested two probable factors of distortion: (1) Lack of insight or the capacity for self -knowledge; and (2) The need for conforming to the social standards of attitude and behaviour.We failed to determine the nature of insight. We could, however, find indications of the correlates of insight from. previous work. Those generally indicated ere abstract intelligence, liability to projection. and sense of humour.We have reiterated many times that our aim in this research was purely theoretical. The success of our endeavour can be judged from the fact that we have been able to isolate two persistent tendencies which are at work in lowering tie validity of personality questionnaires. We have been able to describe some of their characteristics also and give them a rough operational definition. We have also devised some tentative tests for measuring these tendencies,some of which have proved quite suitable. There is no doubt that they need reformulation and a thorough refinement. Nevertheless,they may serve as a useful starting point

Deficits and inflation; Are monetary and financial institutions worthy to consider or not?

AbstractInstitutions are important to analyze the relationship between deficits and inflation. This study examines whether deficits are inflationary or not in the presence of dependent central bank and fragile financial markets. A panel dataset has been used for eleven Asian countries from 1981 to 2010. Estimation results from system GMM show that deficits are inflationary for selected sample, while inflationary pressure of budget deficits is particularly stronger when financial markets are not fully developed and central banks are not free to follow their goals and objectives

Male partners' involvement in prevention of mother-to-child HIV transmission in sub-Saharan Africa : a systematic review

In sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), male partners are rarely present during prevention of mother-to-child transmission (PMTCT) services. This systematic review aims to synthesize, from a male perspective, male partners' perceived roles, barriers and enablers of their involvement in PMTCT, and highlights persisting gaps. We carried out a systematic search of papers published between 2002 and 2013 in English on Google Scholar and PubMed using the following terms: men, male partners, husbands, couples, involvement, participation, Antenatal Care (ANC), PMTCT, SSA countries, HIV Voluntary Counseling and Testing and disclosure. A total of 28 qualitative and quantitative original studies from 10 SSA countries were included. Men's perceived role was addressed in 28% (8/28) of the studies. Their role to provide money for ANC/PMTCT fees was stated in 62.5% (5/8) of the studies. For other men, the financial responsibilities seemed to be used as an excuse for not participating. Barriers were cited in 85.7% (24/28) of the studies and included socioeconomic factors, gender role, cultural beliefs, male unfriendly ANC/PMTCT services and providers' abusive attitudes toward men. About 64% (18/28) of the studies reported enablers such as: older age, higher education, being employed, trustful monogamous marriages and providers' politeness. In conclusion, comprehensive PMTCT policies that are socially and culturally sensitive to both women and men need to be developed