Instinctive Behaviour, Producer Surplus, and Corporate Social Responsibility

This paper addresses a phenomenon that cuts across many disciplines of the formal tradition of learning. Out of numerous multifaceted academic disciplines involved in the argument, psychology, economics and business management stand out, as reflected in the title of the study. The research on the topic is carried out by adopting an inductive approach involving intangible aspects of psychology and tangible parameters of sociology centred around the disciplines of economics and business. The author maintains that the phenomenon of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) represents a challenge of finding the resolution to the paradox of selfish and altruistic human motives. It is argued that quality of that resolution will be determined by the quality of positive laws of socio logy and the quality of intrapersonal regulation to help appreciate social responsibility in the presence of opportunities for maximising self-interest. The review of the literature on CSR underpins factors of international political economy responsible for promotion of the phenomenon in North and South during the last century and in the new millennium respectively. The findings lead to the conclusion that rhetoric of CSR in countries like Pakistan merits the analysis of both its motives and fall out within a North-South divide.Social Responsibility, Instinctive Behaviour, Positive Law, Ethical Behaviour, Stockholders, Technical Barriers to Trade

State, Education, and the Market

The tail of the tail-end of the 2nd millennium has taught the humankind two valuable lessons: democracy and the market, although imperfect, have succeeded where other systems have failed. What is clear is that the most successful systems are aligned to humankind’s predispositions rather than being inimical to them. Insofar as it aligns itself with the predisposition to greed, consistently regulated capitalism terms out to be the most efficient economic system hitherto observed in human society. Likewise, democracy works by aligning many people’s desire for power with a governance system which on balance is helpful to the general population, unlike various forms of totalitarianism. But recent movements for both capitalism and democracy in many developing countries largely do not subscribe to humankind’s predispositions, rather they appear to be a part of the headlong global trend towards these paradigms. The reason being that the most important ingredient, common to both recipes, is lacking in many developing countries: that is the popular pressure and mobilisation which is sufficiently informed of its duties and rights. This ingredient is most important as it forces out the authoritarian rule whether, totalitarian or ‘democratic’, and makes democratic governance drive the market to the maximum benefit of society. The central thesis of this work is that this most important ingredient is the result of an effective and efficient system of public institutions for free and compulsory universal primary schooling which, if the resource constraint could be overcome, ought to be supplemented by free and compulsory secondary schooling. The argument is structured in five parts.

External Determinants of Growth and Growth Projections: SAARC and Pakistan

In the global trading arena, the regional integration perhaps represents the most important legacy of the 20th century. This paper focuses on the scope and promise of economic cooperation between the SAARC region countries. Descriptive statistics is used to provide the evidence for the argument that very high share of trade in the GDP of the region’s economies exposes them to external shocks in a potentially harmful manner, and these countries ought to be paying greater attention to increasing the size of their economies. In order to determine the importance of the external sector in the economies of the region, a simultaneous equations model is formulated and estimated, utilising the pooled data for the period from 1972–2001, by applying the 2SLS technique. The coefficients of two of the three external sector variables included in the model, namely, export earnings and trade balance, turn out to be significant, providing the evidence on the importance of the external sector in the economic growth of the SAARC region countries. Keeping in view that Pakistan needs to adopt sustainable growth strategies, the authors maintain that extended economic cooperation within the SAARC region is the most viable alternative for the country. The argument is substantiated with the help of inferential statistics, providing the evidence that exports to SAARC countries are positively related with the economic growth of Pakistan. The simulation output also shows that increasing and diverting the country’s exports to the SAARC region have positive impact in terms of growth projections. By estimating and simulating another model, it is inferred that in the short run, diverting exports to both the SAARC and ASEAN region countries appears to be a viable strategy to help Pakistan move towards greater integration within the SAARC region, and that the SAARC forums must make meaningful progress in terms of delivering concrete results.Trade, Economic Growth, Pakistan

Textiles Sector of Pakistan: The Challenge Beyond 2004

The world is presently looking forward to embrace the greatest moment of modern history of humankind, turn of the millennium. For Pakistan, however, the millennium celebrations are going to be accompanied by over half a century of missed opportunities and a serious challenge ahead. The focus of this study is Pakistan’s status as a ‘single commodity’ country and the life after 2004 in a post- Multifibre Arrangement (MFA) era. This work intends to use the hindsight to argue that MFA, a cat’s cradle of bilateral textile import quotas, was a blessing in disguise for the value added textiles sector of Pakistan. And the difficulties beyond 2004, when all the quotas have gone, should not be underestimated in a bipolar (NAFTA and the EU) and deregulated world economy . The analysis is carried out in four parts. Part I highlights the economic significance of Pakistan’s textiles industry by briefly analysing its contribution to different sectors of her economy. Part II presents the past, present and future scenario of international trade in Textiles and Clothing (T&C). The present situation of Pakistan’s textiles industry along with its foreign exchange generating performance in the past is assessed in Part III. Finally, Part IV analyses the prospects and challenges faced by the T&C sector of Pakistan

State, Education, and the Market

The tail of the tail-end of the 2nd millennium has taught the humankind two valuable lessons: democracy and the market, although imperfect, have succeeded where other systems have failed. What is clear is that the most successful systems are aligned to humankind’s predispositions rather than being inimical to them. Insofar as it aligns itself with the predisposition to greed, consistently regulated capitalism terms out to be the most efficient economic system hitherto observed in human society. Likewise, democracy works by aligning many people’s desire for power with a governance system which on balance is helpful to the general population, unlike various forms of totalitarianism. But recent movements for both capitalism and democracy in many developing countries largely do not subscribe to humankind’s predispositions, rather they appear to be a part of the headlong global trend towards these paradigms. The reason being that the most important ingredient, common to both recipes, is lacking in many developing countries: that is the popular pressure and mobilisation which is sufficiently informed of its duties and rights. This ingredient is most important as it forces out the authoritarian rule whether, totalitarian or ‘democratic’, and makes democratic governance drive the market to the maximum benefit of society. The central thesis of this work is that this most important ingredient is the result of an effective and efficient system of public institutions for free and compulsory universal primary schooling which, if the resource constraint could be overcome, ought to be supplemented by free and compulsory secondary schooling

Instinctive Behaviour, Producer Surplus, and Corporate Social Responsibility

In a broader sense, CSR became an issue mainly in the recent years. The evolution of this phenomenon is largely to be credited to the neoliberalist era that began in the last quarter of the 20th century and continues to dominate the new millennium. Not surprisingly, the conceptual and operational definitions of CSR are subject to as many controversies and disappointments as is the outcome of neoliberalist economics manifested in looming threats to social, economic and environmental sustainability. The scope of this study is, however, only limited to addressing the issue of CSR. The analysis is carried out by adopting an inductive approach while probing into both interconnected aspects and disconnected separate currents of the phenomenon. The interconnectivity of CSR relates the capitalist paradigm with the individual/collective human behaviour. The disconnection on the other hand refers to specific real world issues with local and global contexts involving simultaneous but unequal capitalist development in the North and the South. The paper is divided into three parts. Part 1 reflects on the relationship between instinctive and ethical behaviour of the entrepreneurs. The former is driven by the motivational force of self-interest exhibited in efforts to accumulate producer surplus, while the latter demands social responsibility under the influence of intrinsic and/or extrinsic regulations. Part II presents a brief review of the literature on CSR, largely relating to the corporate sector in the North. Finally, Part III of the paper analyses the literature on CSR in the developing countries and highlights its recent origins in a world where Technical Barriers to Trade (TBTs) are increasingly underscoring the North-South divide in gains from economic globalisation

An Intelligent Monitoring System of Vehicles on Highway Traffic

Vehicle speed monitoring and management of highways is the critical problem of the road in this modern age of growing technology and population. A poor management results in frequent traffic jam, traffic rules violation and fatal road accidents. Using traditional techniques of RADAR, LIDAR and LASAR to address this problem is time-consuming, expensive and tedious. This paper presents an efficient framework to produce a simple, cost efficient and intelligent system for vehicle speed monitoring. The proposed method uses an HD (High Definition) camera mounted on the road side either on a pole or on a traffic signal for recording video frames. On the basis of these frames, a vehicle can be tracked by using radius growing method, and its speed can be calculated by calculating vehicle mask and its displacement in consecutive frames. The method uses pattern recognition, digital image processing and mathematical techniques for vehicle detection, tracking and speed calculation. The validity of the proposed model is proved by testing it on different highways.Comment: 5 page

Productivity Constraints of Cholistani Farmers

This paper examines the factors behind low crop yield in Cholistan. Both the quantitative and qualitative analysis show how the low levels of agricultural productivity in this area may be linked to material and climatic factors. The quantitative analysis is mainly focused on physical factors. The qualitative analysis, however, emphasises that relative inefficiency of agricultural activity in Cholistan reflects the influence of physical, economic, social and, most importantly, climatic factors. The quantitative findings provide valuable insight into various ‘sources of productivity’ in terms of acreage effect, capital input effect and irrigation water availability effect. The size of the positive and significant coefficients on these variables suggest the extent to which one or the other variable effect is prominent in improving the crop yield. The qualitative analysis examines multiple interrelated factors which can be blamed on for relative inefficiency of Cholistani farmers. The hot climate of the area turns out to be the most critical variable in this analysis. Many specific technological drought-mitigating measures are proposed. However, for consistent policy formulation, a thorough study and quantitative evaluation of the potential and practicality of these measures in Cholistan is suggested.

Attitude of Tribal People of South Waziristan Agency Toward Their Children Sports Participation

This research study was an attempt to explore the attitude of tribal people of South Waziristan agency (SWA) toward their children sports participation. Parents were taken from South Waziristan agency (SWA) as population of the study. For the collection of the data a Likert type scale developed by the researcher and distributed among the selected population and also get it back after filling by the respondents. The collected data were tableted and analyzed by the researcher by using percentile as statistical tool. After analysis, the researcher arrived at conclusion that tribal people having positive attitude toward their children sports participation. Keywords: Tribal, South Waziristan, Agency, Attitude, Children, Parent