Towards Divine Economics: Some Testable Propositions

Throughout the human history, the religion has remained a fundamental feature of social construct and human behaviour. Religious orientation plays important role in shaping human perceptions about economic and non-economic activities. With few exceptions, religion has remained an un-explored area in economics. For most economists, narrative and metaphor have no place in a rational choice theory, which is a wrong belief. In fact, any approach that considers behavioural laws satisfying the criteria of objectivity, reproducibility, and refutability is scientific and falls in purview of rational choice framework. A few studies, however, do exist on economics of religion under rational choice concerning to households, groups, and entire “religious markets”. [Becker (1976); Iannaccone (1988, 1990, 1992, 1993); Mack and Leigland (1992)]. Rosenberg (1985) presents discussion of the limitations of neoclassical economic theory due to its reliance on exogenous differences in taste and preference. It is argued that these limitations cannot be circumvented by findings and theories in other disciplines (e.g., psychology), because any measurement of preferences must begin with neoclassical assumptions about rationality. The alternative to tasteendogeniety advanced by [Becker (1976)] is found to only circumvent the usual difficulties if “stable preferences” notion is interpreted as needs. Further advancement is not taking place because of the important heterogeneous variables, which have yet received little attention from economists. Such variables may be found in attitudes and values acquired by consumers in variety of social and religious environments.

Earthquake 2005: Some Implications for Environment and Human Capital

Loss of human capital in the form of skills and experiences is one of the outcomes of any natural hazard such as earthquake, drought, famine, and floods. Generally such losses have many implications for further growth of individuals, communities and nations. Disaster management and risk assessment has established a new need to constitute a paradigm of planning frameworks to develop modules for dealing with interactive rehabilitation and reconstruction activities. However, such management still lacks due attention in perspective of the remedy of human capital loss particularly in environmental management. This paper discusses the post-disaster situations with respect to human capital flow and stock losses and some of their implications and suggests some measures to apply in the earthquake-affected areas of Azad Kashmir and NWFP.

Study of Philanthropic Behaviour in Divine Economics Framework

Philanthropic Behaviour

Earthquake 2005: Some Implications for Environment and Human Capital

Loss of human capital in the form of skills and experiences is one of the outcomes of any natural hazard such as earthquake, drought, famine, and floods. Generally such losses have many implications for further growth of individuals, communities and nations. Disaster management and risk assessment has established a new need to constitute a paradigm of planning frameworks to develop modules for dealing with interactive rehabilitation and reconstruction activities. However, such management still lacks due attention in perspective of the remedy of human capital loss particularly in environmental management. This paper discusses the post-disaster situations with respect to human capital flow and stock losses and some of their implications and suggests some measures to apply in the earthquake-affected areas of Azad Kashmir and NWFP

Earthquake 2005: Some Implications for Environment and Human Capital

Loss of human capital in the form of skills and experiences is one of the outcomes of any natural hazard such as earthquake, drought, famine, and floods. Generally such losses have many implications for further growth of individuals, communities and nations. Disaster management and risk assessment has established a new need to constitute a paradigm of planning frameworks to develop modules for dealing with interactive rehabilitation and reconstruction activities. However, such management still lacks due attention in perspective of the remedy of human capital loss particularly in environmental management. This paper discusses the post-disaster situations with respect to human capital flow and stock losses and some of their implications and suggests some measures to apply in the earthquake-affected areas of Azad Kashmir and NWFP

Study of Philanthropic Behaviour in Divine Economics Framework

Unfortunately, religious behaviour has been viewed by economists in terms of “Islamic economics,” “Christian economics”, etc. [Iannaccone (1986)]. Hence there has been a dichotomy prevailing between religious economic frameworks and the conventional rational choice theory.1 Whereas the conventional economists tried a variety of models to estimate the relationship between wages and time allocated to market labour supply but found that results mostly do not speak of the real world situation [Deaton (1980)]. The underlying reason was supposed to be faith and values which have strong effect on labour supply decisions [Pencavel (1986)]. The philanthropic behaviour relates to labour supply decisions directly through time allocated to voluntary services or indirectly through time allocated for earning and then donations out of these. It is observed that the variables of economic importance especially those relating to household resource allocation or labour supply decisions seem to be present in religious affiliation of individuals, their values and their perceptions about life before and after death as believed by the followers of divine religions which account for about two thirds of the world population

Effect Of Direct Teaching Method On The Academic Achievement Of High And Low Achievers In The Subject Of English At The Secondary Level

The major objective of the study was to determine the role of the direct teaching method in the academic achievement of students in English at the secondary level. To achieve the said objective, the Solomon Four-Design pre-test/post-test equivalent group design was considered to be the most useful design for this study. The pre-test was used to measure the achievement. The pre-test was used only to equate the control and experimental groups. Thus, the Solomon four-group design was applied for treatment of the data. The experimental group was taught by the direct method, while the control group was taught by the traditional method for a period of six weeks. At the end of the treatment, a post-test was administered and scores of pre-test and post-test were served as data for the study. Applying t-test and analysis of variance tested to know the significance of difference between the scores of groups at 0.05 levels. After analyzing the secured data it was concluded that the direct teaching method was more effective as a teaching-learning technique for English compared to the traditional teaching method. Students in the direct teaching method outscored the students working in the traditional learning situation. Low achievers in the direct teaching showed significant superiority over low achievers learning English by the traditional method. Thus, direct teaching was found to be a more effective method for quality teaching of English to the low achievers as compared to the traditional method of teaching. High achievers, whether they were taught English by the direct or traditional method, retained learned material at the same rate. Low achievers who were taught English by the direct method retained more material as compared to low achievers taught by traditional method of teaching

Conceptualizing the Impact of Religiosity on the Preferences for Islamic Banking in Mirpur (Azad Jammu and Kashmir): An Empirical Analysis

Over the years, Islamic banking has emerged as a viable alternative to conventional banking, especially after the global financial crises of 2008. Despite the fact that the existing literature emphasizes on this significant shift in customers’ preferences in favor of Islamic banking, there are only a few studies that investigate the actual motives behind this shift. Hence, the key objective of this study is to identify the different factors that explain consumer preferences regarding Islamic banking services, specifically in Mirpur. Even more specifically, this study explores the role of religiosity in influencing consumers’ choice of Islamic banking in Mirpur. To test whether or not religiosity affects consumer preference for Islamic banking, the logistic regression technique has been used for the data analysis. The overall results reveal that besides the conventional variables, the religiosity level of customers, Shariah compliance of an Islamic bank, and knowledge of the respondent about prohibition of interest (Riba) in Islam have positive, and significant effects on consumers’ selection of Islamic banks. Based on these empirical findings, this study suggests that along with improving delivery and quality of services, Islamic banks should emphasize on Shariah compliance which provides a sustainable competitive advantage for Islamic banks over conventional banks.</jats:p