Fiscal, Monetary Policies and Institutions’ Role (Political, Social and Economic) in Pakistan

The purpose of this study is to test the fundamental relationship between fiscal, monetary policies and institutions in Pakistan from 1976 to 2008. These policies are roadmap in the progress of a country. No doubt both these policies are useful tools in the hands of the government to increase the per capita GDP of the country. Such policies depict the performance level of institutions of a country. Better institutions leads to higher level of growth. Institutions perform significant role in the progress of any country. The growth targets can be achieved through institutions. Higher the quality of institutions, higher the performance would be shown by economy. Countries can reach middle-income levels despite some corruption, but further growth requires much better institutions (Easterly, 2001, pp. 234-235, 245-248, Rodrik, 2003, pp. 16-17).Kwiatkowski et al (1992) test is used to test unit root and short run relationship is analyzed through ECM. Auto regressive distributed lags (ARDL) shows that there is long run relationship among growth policies and institutions’ role in Pakistan

The Electricity Consumption and Economic Growth Nexus in Pakistan: A New Evidence

This study examines the Granger causality between electricity consumption and Gross Domestic Product (GDP) for Pakistan using annual data covering the period 1971 to 2007. Augmented Dickey-Fuller test and Phillips-Perron test reveal that both the series, after logarithmic transformation, are non-stationary and individually integrated at order one. Engle and Granger Cointegration test exhibits the absence of long-run relationship among the variables. Two tests of causality, standard Granger Causality test and Modified WALD test (T-Y test) affirm the existence of unidirectional Granger causality from electricity consumption to economic growth without any feedback effect. Therefore, an immediate effort to increase electricity availability is required and energy conservation policies are supposed to halt the economic growth

Estimation of Willingness to Pay for Improvements in Drinking Water Quality in Lahore: A Case Study of WASA, Lahore

This study examines the existing water quality of Lahore and measures domestic household’s willingness to pay for improvement in water quality services. To this end, a Tobit model is estimated by conducting a contingent valuation survey about household perceptions in six towns of Lahore.The results show that the factors affecting household’s willingness to pay are coping costs that a household pay for ensuring quality of water also the education level of head of family is an important factor in determining the willingness to pay for improved water services. It is recommended that by ensuring the supply and quality to the household additional revenue of 4.22 million rupees could be earned by the authority

New Direction to Evaluate the Economic Impact of Peace for Bilateral Trade among World Economies

Earlier researchers have been working to relate globalisation, trade or free trade as an instrument for bringing peace and reducing conflict in the world. But this study attempts to open up a new debate that how social unrest in terms of lack of pace in nations leads to failure of economic policing and outcomes. In past, few researchers have tried to show peaceful environment as a generator for economic progress by building theoretical models, but limited empirical analysis has been conducted so far. This brings a novelty in the present study that for the first time a large set of data covering 155 nations has been used to explore the relationship between these two desired variables i.e. trade related variables and peace, in new direction and employing new indicators defining extent of peace in nations. Panel co-integration technique has been applied along with Fully Modified Ordinary Least Squares (FMOLS) and Dynamic Ordinary Least Squares (DOLS) models to know the parametric and non-parametric point estimates of variables. Data has been extracted from Economic Institute of Peace and World Bank for the time period 2008-2014. Results showed that lesser number of attacks are associated with more volume of trade among nations and better relations with neighbouring countries are linked positively with trade performance of nations. Nations involved more into hostility acts like conflicts are unable to maximise the benefits from bilateral trade. JEL Classification: F10, D74, L33, C23. Keywords: Globalisation, Trade, Conflict, Terrorism, Panel Mode

GDP Fluctuations and Private Investment: A Macro Panel Analysis of Selected South Asian Countries

The current study examines the relationship between GDP fluctuations and private investment by using macro panel approach in a panel of five selected South Asian countries (SSAC) including Bangladesh, India, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka for the period of 1980-2010. The study applies modern non-stationary panel techniques such as cross section dependence test, unit root test under cross sectional dependence, panel cointegration and Group Mean Fully Modified OLS (GM-FMOLS) estimation. The study finds a long-run co-integrating relationship between GDP fluctuations and private investment in the SSAC. GM-FMOLS estimates show that this link is negative. Thus, the results indicate that GDP fluctuations have a significant negative impact on private investment in SSAC as GDP volatility gives a negative signal to private investors. The study also suggests that GDP volatility may be harmful for private investment in developing countries and negative effect on private investment will also be transferred to growth as the investment is a key determinant of growth. So, the governments of developing countries should equally focus on managing the volatility of GDP to increase private investment along with other measures for creating an investment-friendly environment. Additionally, an increase in private investment will further help in maintenance of stability

GDP Fluctuations and Private Investment: A Macro Panel Analysis of Selected South Asian Countries

The current study examines the relationship between GDP fluctuations and private investment by using macro panel approach in a panel of five selected South Asian countries (SSAC) including Bangladesh, India, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka for the period of 1980-2010. The study applies modern non-stationary panel techniques such as cross section dependence test, unit root test under cross sectional dependence, panel cointegration and Group Mean Fully Modified OLS (GM-FMOLS) estimation. The study finds a long-run co-integrating relationship between GDP fluctuations and private investment in the SSAC. GM-FMOLS estimates show that this link is negative. Thus, the results indicate that GDP fluctuations have a significant negative impact on private investment in SSAC as GDP volatility gives a negative signal to private investors. The study also suggests that GDP volatility may be harmful for private investment in developing countries and negative effect on private investment will also be transferred to growth as the investment is a key determinant of growth. So, the governments of developing countries should equally focus on managing the volatility of GDP to increase private investment along with other measures for creating an investment-friendly environment. Additionally, an increase in private investment will further help in maintenance of stability

Comparison Of Quality Of Sleep Between Diabetic And Non-Diabetic Population Using Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index

Background: Sleep is an essential event that effects quality of life and hormonal balance in human body. The association between sleep and diabetes is bi-directional. Methods: This study was conducted with a case control design in the Department of Medicine of Combined Military Hospital Peshawar between June 2022 to November 2022. Results: . Mean age of study population was 51.1±12.94 years with 46% females and 54% males. Majority population was educated up to matriculation with BMI in normal (18.5-24.9 kg/m2) range. There was no statistical difference in demographic data amongst diabetic and control group . Avg HbA1c was 8.546% ± 1.57% in the diabetic group and 5.712% ± 0.49% in control group. As per PSQI questionnaire 47 (47%) participants were good sleeper across the study population, which included 17 out 50 (34%) individuals in the diabetic and 30 out of 50 (60%) in control group. This equated to statistically significant difference amongst two group with a p value 0.007. A statistically significant difference (p = 0.001) was also seen in PSQI score between diabetic and control groups (9.40 ± 5.82 vs 5.98 ± 4.85 respectively). Diabetics had 2.9 times odds (95% confidence interval 1.29-6.57, p = 0.01) of having bad quality sleep as compared to controls. In the diabetic group majority were males educated up to matriculate having medium adherence treated with both oral hypoglycemic drugs and insulin having 3 or more comorbid condition with hypertension being most prevalent single comorbid disease. Conclusion: By strict glycemic control in diabetics we can imove their quality of sleep Interventions to improve sleep hygiene can be suggested to patients by diabetes educators as part of diabetes self-management education programs

Spatial agglomeration and productivity of textile and leather manufacturing in the Punjab province of Pakistan

This study investigates whether spatial agglomeration of textile and leather industry facilitates to enhance its own productivity at establishment level in the Punjab province of Pakistan. The empirical analysis is based on the survey data for the years 1995-96, 2000-2001 and 2005-06 collected from the Punjab Bureau of Statistics (PBS). The production function framework has been utilized. The results of production function suggest that spatial agglomeration of textile and leather industry plays a vital role in determining the productivity of establishments. The impact of localization (specialization) is positive and stronger than urbanization (diversification) which implies that locating manufacturing establishments in a particular district leads to enhance the productivity of establishments. Therefore, government policy should be biased to promote localization of textile and leather industry

Fiscal policy, institutions and governance in selected South Asian countries

The objective of the study is to analyze the cyclicality of Fiscal Policy among Institutions (Economic and Political) and governance indicators from 1980-2010 in major South Asian Countries. Fiscal policy is a major source in the hands of the government to achieve higher level of economic growth. This policy can perform efficiently in the presence of strong institutions with good governance. The main purpose of fiscal policy is to bring stability in the economy. Therefore, developed countries adopt counter cyclical policies but developing countries adopt pro cyclical fiscal policy. Developing countries adopt pro cyclical fiscal policy due to weak institution and poor governance. Pooled OLS, Fixed effects and 2SLS approaches are used to evaluate whether the fiscal policy is counter cyclical or pro cyclical. It is found that fiscal policy is pro cyclical, economic and political institutions don't perform effectively and governance is poor. In order to bring stability in economic growth in South Asian countries, counter cyclical growth policies should be adopted

Does public education expenditure cause economic growth? Comparison of developed and developing countries

The purpose of this paper is to examine the long-run relationship between public education expenditures and economic growth. The social benefits of education exceed its private benefits. Therefore, education is considered a merit good; if not supplied by the public sector, private production is undersupplied. The study has employed heterogeneous panel data analysis. Panel unit root tests are applied for checking stationarity. The single-equation approach of panel cointegration (Kao, 1999); Pedroni's Residual-Based Panel Cointegration Test (1997; 1999) is applied to determine the existence of long-run relationship between public education expenditures and gross domestic production. Lastly, panel fully modified ordinary least square results indicate that the impact of public education expenditures on economic growth is greater in the case of developing countries as compare to the developed countries, which verified the "catching-up effect" in developing countries