Colonialism and Industrialization: Empirical Results

This paper presents theory and evidence to show that imperialism was a major factor impeding the spread of the industrial revolution during the century ending in the 1950s. Two empirical results stand out. First, analysis of historical evidence shows that most sovereign countries were implementing active industrial policies during the nineteenth century, while policies in dependent countries were biased in the opposite direction. Second, when allowance is made for economic determinants, industrialization in dependent countries in 1960 is found to be significantly lower than in sovereign countries. This result is shown to be quite robust to changes in data, sample size, functional forms, and specifications of the estimating equations. In particular, the basic results are not affected by the inclusion of a dummy for Sub-Saharan Africa

Some Economic Results of the Civilizing Mission

This paper proposes three tasks. It briefly delineates the character of the civilizing mission and the interests it served, especially the colonization of Asia and Africa. In addition, the claims of the civilizing mission and the neoclassical theory of trade are tested empirically by comparing growth rates of sovereign countries and colonies, and of colonies before and after they gained sovereignty. Finally, we offer a quick review of the changing dynamics of the global economy as goods which were hitherto non-tradable become increasingly tradable.Civilizing mission; imperialism; colonization; global economy; neoclassical theory; free trade; growth rates; non-tradable goods; tradable goods

Global Disparities Since 1800:Trends and Regional Patterns

This paper reviews the growing body of evidence on the relative economic standing of different regions of the world in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. In general, it does not find support for Eurocentric claims regarding Western Europe’s early economic lead. The Eurocentric claims are based primarily on estimates of a per capita income, which are plagued by conceptual problems, make demands on historical data that are generally unavailable, and they use questionable assumptions to reconstruct early per capita income. A careful examination of these conjectural estimates of per capita income, however, does not support claims that Western Europe had a substantial lead over the rest of the world at the beginning of the nineteenth century. An examination of several alternative indices of living standards in the late eighteenth or early nineteenth centuries – such as real wages, labor productivity in agriculture, and urbanization – also fails to confirm claims of European superiority. In addition, this paper examines the progress of global disparities – including the presence of regional patterns – using estimates of per capita income.Global economy; Disparities; Regional patterns; Per capita income; Real wages; Labor productivity; Agriculture; Eurocentric

Can an Islamic Model of Housing Finance Cooperative Elevate the Economic Status of the Underprivileged?.

This paper was refined during my sabbatical study at James Madison University (JMU). I appreciate the hospitality of JMU particularly that of Ehsan Ahmed. I have benefited from the critical comments of the participants of the seminars at James Madison University; University of Birmingham; University of Glasgow; the 2006 Conference on Computing in Economics and Finance (in Cyprus); the 2007 IIUM International Conference (in Malaysia); at the 2007 Workshop on Default Risk and Financial Distress (in Rennes, France), the 2007 Product Development and Management Association Conference (in Bangalore, India); the 2008 International Conference on Business and Finance (in Hyderabad, India); the 2008 International AREUEA Conference (in Istanbul, Turkey); the 2008 Workshop of European Network of the Economics of Religion (in Edinburgh, UK); and the 2008 Symposium on Religion, Markets and Society (in Nottingham, UK) on earlier drafts of the paper. I am also grateful to the following individuals for their helpful suggestions: Bruce Brunton, Humayon Dar, Mohammad Omar Farooq, Diana Mitlin, Kelly Morris, Peter Oliver, Barkley Rosser, Peer Smets, Ghulam Sorwar, Rafal Wojakowski and Robert Young. All remaining errors are mine.ASCRA, Asset Bubble, Mutual Bank, Inflation, Mortgage Design,and ROSCA.

Absolute neutrino masses

We discuss the possibility of using experiments timing the propagation of neutrino beams over large distances to help determine the absolute masses of the three neutrinos.Comment: 3 pages, 2 figure

Neutrinos with velocities greater than c ?

A possible explanation of the results of the OPERA experiment is presented. Assuming that the usual value of c should be interpreted as the velocity of light in dark matter, we call the "true" velocity of light in vacuum, $c_t$. Then the OPERA neutrinos can be faster than c but slower than $c_t$. We also discuss the relationship between $c_t$ and neutrino masses.Comment: 5 pages, 1 figure, additional references adde

Investor confidence, macroeconomic forces and the performance of stock market- an empirical investigation of the Pakistan stock market

This study investigates investor confidence and the macroeconomic factors contributing to the Stock market performance in Pakistan during the period 1997- 2012. We find that: (1) Macro economic variables play an important role in explaining stock market performance in Pakistan. (2) The effects of macroeconomic variables on the stock market performance across different sectors, different firm sizes, and different risk portfolios are somewhat different. (3) Historical stock return volatility significantly influences the current stock market volatility; and historical volatility shocks drive volatility changes in all sectors of the stock market. (4) Investor sentiment exhibits explanatory power in capturing financial market anomalies such as the size, sector momentum effect and betas of the firm. Particularly, there is a positive association between investor confidence and stock returns, and the majority of variations in stock returns are explained by the investor sentiment index. (5) The sensitivities of the stock market performance are different across different industries. (6) The findings also indicate that risky portfolio returns are more sensitive to the investor confidence, and vice versa. (7) Similarly, the large firms are less sensitive, where small firms are highly sensitive to the investors’ confidence. The findings let us to conclude that high risk firms and small firms are hard-to-arbitrage. Our findings facilitate policy-makers and practitioners to understand the importance of investor sentiment and take remedial measures to build confidence among investors

The Futures Pricing Puzzle

This paper models commodity futures in a rational expectations equilibrium specifically (i) incorporating the conflict of interests between Hedgers (Producers-Consumers) and Speculators and (ii) superimposing constraints to immunize the real sector of the economy from shocks of excessive futures contracting. We extend the framework of Newbery and Stiglitz (1981), Anderson and Danthine (1983) and Britto (1984) to attribute the conflicting and puzzling results in the empirical literature to the presence of multiple equilibria ranked in a pecking order of decreasing pareto-efficiency. Thus, we caution empirical researchers on making inferences on data embedded with moving equilibria, as it can render their analysis of asset pricing mechanism incomprehensible. Finally, we rationalize the imposition of position limits by policy makers to help steer the equilibria to pareto-inferior ones, which make the real sector of the economy more resilient to shocks from the financial sectorContango, Expectations, Normal Backwardations