Modelling and forecasting the kurtosis and returns distributions of financial markets: irrational fractional Brownian motion model approach

The file attached to this record is the author's final peer reviewed version. The Publisher's final version can be found by following the DOI link. Open accessThis paper reports a new methodology and results on the forecast of the numerical value of the fat tail(s) in asset returns distributions using the irrational fractional Brownian motion model. Optimal model parameter values are obtained from fits to consecutive daily 2-year period returns of S&P500 index over [1950–2016], generating 33-time series estimations. Through an econometric model,the kurtosis of returns distributions is modelled as a function of these parameters. Subsequently an auto-regressive analysis on these parameters advances the modelling and forecasting of kurtosis and returns distributions, providing the accurate shape of returns distributions and measurement of Value at Risk

The Impact of Health on Economic Growth: A Panel Data Investigation of Asia

This research investigates the relationship between health and economic growth by using a balanced panel of 42 Asian economies over the time period ranging from 1995 to 2016. Panel co-integration test with Dynamic ordinary least squares (DOLS) and fully modified ordinary least squares (FMOLS) are part of our analysis to check the association between health indicator and economic growth of both the genders. This study has positive and statistically significant effect of health changes on per capita income of male and female. Moreover, this research concludes the economic performance has also a significant impact on health improvement ceterus paribus. These findings imply that health improvement policies should be used as apparatus to economic growth and vice versa

Does Financial Development Induce Inflation? ARDL Based Evidence from Pakistan

The study explores the dynamic association of financial expansion in curbing inflation and thereby assessing the general economic welfare strategies employing data over 1974-2016 for Pakistan. Econometric sophistication rests in the employment of autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) bound test of co-integration with short run disequilibrium models. The outcome corroborates that inflation and financial development with other controlled variables are co-integrated. The findings also corroborate that broad money, domestic credit to private sector, government expenses, and personal remittances are crucial indicators of financial development and diversely linked with inflation over the period of analysis. Specifically, broad money and government expenses corroborate a long run impact on inflation conforming to the idea of quantity theory of money neutrality. Likewise, domestic credit has shown noteworthy but low positive drive to inflation in long time of span, albeit domestic credit has insignificantly linked to inflation for the short span of time. These findings inter alia imply for the promotion of sound domestic banking/financial sector for credit market and new strategies for controlling the broad money/government expenses to curb the unintended rampant level of inflation in Pakistan

Benford’s laws tests on S&P500 daily closing values and the corresponding daily log-returns both point to huge non-conformity

open access articleThe so-called Benford’s laws are of frequent use to detect anomalies and regularities in data sets, particularly in election results and financial statements. However, primary financial market indices have not been much studied, if studied at all, within such a perspective. This paper presents features in the distributions of S&P500 daily closing values and the corresponding daily log-returns over a long time interval, [03/01/1950 - 22/08/2014], amounting to 16265 data points. We address the frequencies of the first, second, and first two significant digits and explore the conformance to Benford’s laws of these distributions at five different (equal size) levels of disaggregation. The log-returns are studied for either positive or negative cases. The results for the S&P500 daily closing values are showing a remarkable lack of conformity, whatever the different levels of disaggregation. The causes of this non-conformity are discussed, pointing to the danger in taking Benford’s laws for granted in large databases, whence drawing “definite conclusions”. The agreements with Benford’s laws are much better for the log-returns. Such a disparity in agreements finds an explanation in the data set itself: the index’s inherent trends. To further validate this, daily returns have been simulated via the Geometric Brownian Motion and calibrating the simulations with the observed data averages and testing against Benford’s laws when the log-returns distribution’s standard deviation changes. One finds that the trend and the standard deviation of the distributions are relevant parameters in concluding about conformity with Benford’s laws

Resistance of polio to its eradication in Pakistan

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>This study is based on EPI (Expanded Program on Immunization) immunization surveys and surveillance of polio, its challenges in immunization and the way forward to overcome these challenges.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>Several Government documents, survey reports and unpublished program documents were studied and online search was made to find information on EPI Pakistan. SPSS 16 and Microsoft Excel 2007 were used for the statistical analysis.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Immunization against polio is higher in urban areas as compared to rural areas. Marked variation in vaccination has been observed in different provinces of Pakistan in the last decade. Secondly 10-20% of the children who have received their first dose of trivalent polio vaccine were deprived of their 2^ndand 3^rddose because of poor performance of EPI and Lack of information about immunization.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>In spite of numerous successes, such as the addition of new vaccines and raising immunization to over 100% in some areas, EPI is still struggling to reach its polio eradication goals. Inadequate service delivery, lack of information about immunization and limited number of vaccinators were found to be the key reason for poor performance of immunization and for large number of cases reported each year due to the deficiency of second and third booster dose.</p

Gas exchange and morpho-physiological response of soybean to straw mulching under drought conditions

A pot experiment was conducted to investigate the morphological, physiological and biochemical straw mulch-induced response of soybean under water-deficit conditions. Soybean (Glycine max L. Merrill) variety “Xidou 7” was treated with varying quantity of wheat straw mulch viz: (control (no straw mulch), 3750, 7500, 11000 and 14750 kg/ha) under water-deficit conditions. The experimental results indicate that the varying quantity of straw mulch significantly improved the plant growth in terms of plant height, leaf area, number of leaves/plant and stem diameter. Mulch treatment also significantly enhanced the photosynthesis (PN), intercellular CO2 concentration (Ci), transpiration rate (E) and stomatal conductance (gs) over the control. The gas exchange parameters were improved depending on the quantity of wheat straw mulch; significantly highPN and E was observed in the treatment where wheat straw was applied at the rate of 11000 kg/ha. Wheat straw mulch treatments led to noticeable reduction in malondialdehyde (MDA) contents, which protected the drought stressed soybean plants from membrane damage. Furthermore, the free proline contents linearly increased with increase in straw mulch quantity. It is evident that wheat straw mulch can considerably modulate growth, photosynthetic and physio-biochemical attributes of soybean under drought. The research will effectively solve seasonal drought problem and can provide technical assistance for sustainable agriculture development.Keywords: Soybean, growth, water-deficit, wheat straw mulchAfrican Journal of Biotechnology Vol. 12(18), pp. 2360-236

Protective role of glycinebetaine in maize against drought-induced lipid peroxidation by enhancing capacity of antioxidative system

Abstract A pot-culture study was performed to investigate the efficacy of glycinebetaine (GB) for drought tolerance in two contrasting maize cultivars. Progressive drought stress noticeably reduced the relative leaf water content (RLWC) but increased protein and proline concentrations in both cultivars. The reduction in RLWC in DD-60 was lower than ND-95, whereas, the accumulation of protein and proline was substantially higher in DD-60 over ND-95 during experimental period. Nonetheless, GB-treatment led to increase in RLWC, protein and proline accumulation in DD-60 than ND-95. Prolonged drought stress induced the membrane lipid peroxidation, which was more severe in ND-95 than DD-60. GB-treatment substantially ameliorated the lipid peroxidation in DD-60 over ND-95 under drought stress. The activity of superoxide dismutase (SOD), peroxidase (POD) and catalase (CAT) were substantially enhanced in DD-60 than ND-95 with the prolongation of drought stress at beginning and then declined subsequently. These results possibly suggest that the DD-60 showed a better protection mechanism against water-induced lipid peroxidation by maintaining higher constitutive activities of antioxidant enzymes than ND-95. Nevertheless, GB-treated plants maintained higher antioxidant enzymes activity during drought stress than non-GB treated plants, which ultimately enhanced the growth, yield and yield components. The foliar application of glycinebetaine only considered advantageous when applied under drought and exhibit pronounced effects when applied at flowering. Drought tolerance can be improved in maize by the foliar GB-treatment through enhancing the antioxidants capacity

The Role of HR Practices on Turnover Intentions Directly and Through Organizational Citizenship Behavior in the Banking Sector of Malaysia

In the recent years, the banking industry of Malaysia has grown rapidly and the roles of employees are undeniable. In todays, dynamic environment banking industry is striving hard to retain the employees in the organization. Employee provides the basis for organization to be successful. The aim of this paper was to investigate the role of HR practices on turnover intentions directly and indirectly through organizational citizenship behavior in banking sector of Malaysia. Data collected through 510 questionnaires from top five banks (by Capital) branches in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. In order to investigate the hypotheses, this study applied Structural equation modelling (AMOS). Findings of this study portray that HR practices had negative effect on turnover intentions while the interesting finding is that indirect effect of HR practices through organizational citizenship were also significant. The results are beneficial for top management of banking sector of Malaysia in order to keep motivating employees and to retain them through proper implementation of OCB. To build and align the HR practices and OCB which results in reducing turnover intentions of employees. Keywords: HR Practices, Organizational Citizenship Behavior, Turnover Intentions, SEM. JEL Classifications: H11; S12 DOI: https://doi.org/10.32479/irmm.1076