Inflation Everywhere is a Monetary Phenomenon: An Introductory Note

Inflation

The Malay Nobat: A History of Power, Acculturation, and Sovereignty

A book review is presented for Raja Iskandar Bin Raja Halid\u27s The Malay Nobat: A History of Power, Acculturation, and Sovereignty, The Lexington Series in Historical Ethnomusicology: Deep Soundings (Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2022)

Forecasting volatility and Value-at-Risk of the Karachi Stock Exchange 100 index: Comparing distribution-type and asymmetry-type models

We investigate the daily volatility and Value-at-Risk (VaR) forecasts for the Karachi Stock Exchange 100 Index (KSE-100) series from 1998 to 2008. The forecasting performance of the distribution-type volatility models (GARCH-N, -t, -SGT, and -HT) are compared with that of asymmetry-type models (GJR-GARCH and EGARCH) in order to ascertain the crucial determinants for improving forecast accuracy of daily volatility and VaR. Empirical results indicate that the GARCH-HT and GARCH-SGT models generate far more accurate daily volatility forecasts as compared to their competitors. For VaR calculation, the GARCH-t and GARCH-SGT are the appropriate models to predict the daily VaRs of KSE-100 stock index under high confidence level

Women’s Economic Empowerment through Financial literacy, Financial Attitude and Financial Wellbeing

Economic empowerment is a combination of individual’s knowledge, ability, skills and confidence for handling her own financial wellbeing. Increasingly, individuals are responsible for their own financial literacy and encountered with complex integrated financial instruments. The purpose of this study is to highlight the key constructs including financial literacy, financial attitude, financial wellbeing and economic empowerment and then present the impact of financial literacy, financial attitude and financial wellbeing on the economic empowerment. The sample size of this survey based study consists of 300 working women from non-financial sector. The results of this study indicate that financial literacy, financial attitude and financial wellbeing are positively and significantly related to economic empowerment. Higher the level of financial literacy and positive financial attitude in women, greater will be the financial wellbeing and ultimately increase women’s empowerment. Economic empowerment is found to be affected by age, education, income level, marital status profession, saving and investment behavior. Significant difference in economic empowerment was found on the basis of age and marital status of the respondent. Finally, results revealed that the presence of financial literacy, positive financial attitude and financial wellbeing is necessary for the economic empowerment of working women. Keywords: financial literacy, financial attitude, financial wellbeing, economic empowerme

Inflation Everywhere is a Monetary Phenomenon: An Introductory Note

Ever since the 1970s, when inflation became a virtually global phenomenon, controlling inflation has become a high priority for policy-makers. Given the well-known costs of inflation, policy now in all countries is inflation-averse. Perhaps one of the more important adverse consequences of inflation may be that high and persistent inflation is a regressive tax1 which adversely impacts the poor.2 The poor are extremely limited in their options to protect themselves against inflation; they are normally asset-poor, while most of their saving is in the form of cash. Inflation erodes cash savings and protects the rich who hold real assets.3 It is not surprising that inflation may be politically costly for the government. Studies have also found that high and volatile inflation has been detrimental to growth and financial sector development. Resource allocation is inhibited as inflation obscures relative price changes and thus inhibits optimal resource allocation. For policy to control inflation, it is important to understand the factors that drive inflation. Unquestionably, empirical evidence points to “inflation being always and everywhere a monetary phenomenon” [Friedman (1963)]. However, there still remains some debate on whether supply-side factors could cause inflation without monetary accommodation.4 The structuralist school of thought holds that supply constraints that drive up prices of specific goods can have wider repercussions on the overall price level. Similarly, there are a number of possible sources of rising costs such as wages, profits, imported inflation-exchange rate, commodity prices, external shocks, exhaustion of natural resources, and taxes. For example, in Pakistan, increases in the wheat support price have frequently been blamed for increasing inflation.5 .......

In Conversation with Professor Mohammad A. Quayum

An interview that investigates my academic publications, translation works and my social and literary outlook in general

Incorporation of Food Materials as a Source of Dietary Fibres and Natural Antioxidants in Meat Products and their Effect on Product Quality and Human Health: A Mini Review

Meat and meat products share an important status among the various food products because of their high biological value with the goodness of nutritional compounds. Meat is a perfect source of protein along with minerals, vitamins, amino acids, essential fatty acids and many other specific nutrients. Socio-economic factors have to lead to a change in lifestyle, which in turn has increased the demand for ready to eat products, among which meat products are also rapidly gaining attraction of consumers. Although these meat products have good nutritional value, they generally contain a large amount of fat and added salts but are lack of dietary fibre which leads to various health problems in human consuming meat and meat products. Lack of dietary fibre in meat products gives birth to coronary heart diseases, diabetes, high blood pressure and intestinal cancer etc. Consumers are growing their consciousness towards the health aspect without compromising on nutritional benefits. Therefore, meat products fortified with significant levels of dietary fibre has been suggested. 28-36 g/day dietary fibre is recommended and which can be met by their incorporation in the diet of people consuming meat and meat products. The insoluble part of dietary fibre helps in regulation of intestinal function whereas soluble dietary fibre regarded as helpful in lowering cholesterol level by absorbing glucose in the intestine. Another critical problem concerning meat and meat products is the lipid oxidation which reduces the shelf life of product during storage. Natural antioxidants are suggested for retarding lipid oxidation and ultimately enhancing the shelf life of the product under storage. Synthetic antioxidants are losing publicity because they have revealed several toxicological effects during various studies. Thus there is a growing trend of use of natural antioxidants along with the dietary fibre obtained from plant sources in meat and meat products. Various food wastes such as fruit and vegetable by-products from food processing industries can serve the purpose of dietary fibre as well as natural antioxidants because of the polyphenolic compounds present in them. Generally, these by-products from fruit and vegetable processing industries are cheap, and their utilisation develops indirect income generation. The utilisation of vegetable and fruit wastes as a source of dietary fibre and natural antioxidants also reduces pollution to some extent which might be caused by their disposal. Thus along with waste reduction, cost reduction in economic terms, it also helps the environment by decreasing the load of their disposal. The incorporation of these by-products from various plant sources attracts consumers as they improve quality attributes viz. physicochemical, microbiological and organoleptic properties in meat and its products with health benefits and hence gives satisfaction to the consumers regarding their health consciousness

A model of Islamic tourism towards religious motivation and tourist satisfaction in Malaysia

Abstract The aim of this chapter is to explore the roles of religious motivation in the relationship between tourists' antecedents and their destination and satisfaction , and to provide some guidelines to aid tourism professionals in developing and implementing the niche strategy of Islamic tourism for the advancement of the tourism industry of a country such as Malaysia. In the Malaysian context, the religious motivation of international Muslim tourists is increasingly active in their minds, which suggests that tourism professionals consider Shariah-compliant tourism to keep long-term customer relationships. Perceived value, destination image, and service quality influence international Muslim tourists to look to this destination for satisfaction . As a moderation role, the more the level of religious motivation varies, the more the effect of moderator yields. In addition, tourism professionals necessarily require understanding relevant Shariah rules, character­ istics of international Muslim tourists , and the context of the Islamic country so that they can design a Shariah-compliant tourism strategy and policy effective for further growth of the tourism industr

Performance of locally discovered rice cultivar (Haridhan) in Bangladesh under urea sprays technology

The research work was conducted at the Agronomy Field Laboratory, Department of Agronomy, Bangladesh Agricultural University, Mymensingh during the period from July to November 2015 to evaluate the yield performance of BRRI dhan56 and a locally discovered rice cultivar Haridhan under foliar and traditional application of urea. The experiment included six treatments of urea application technique as T1=N0 (control), T2=N65%, T3=N50%+US (15%), T4=N50%+US (20%), T5=N60%+US (15%), T6=N100% (traditional method) and two rice varieties viz. HYV rice cultivar BRRI dhan56 and locally discovered rice cultivar Haridhan. The experiment was laid out in a randomized complete block design (RCBD) with three replications. Foliar application of urea had significant effect on yield and yield components of BRRI dhan56 and Haridhan. It has been found that the treatment N50%+US (20%) produced highest grain yield (6.14 t ha-1) which might be due to the highest number of total tillers hill-1 (15.03), effective tillers hill-1 (12.11), panicle length (26.21 cm) and grains panicle-1 (156.91) got from this treatment. From the result it can be concluded that both the varieties produced highest grain yield with 50% of the required urea applied to the soil and 20% of the required urea applied as foliar spray that can save an amount of 30% of recommended dose of urea in rice field of Banglades

Comparative growth analysis of capsulated (Vi+) and acapsulated (Vi-) Salmonella Typhi isolates in human blood

Salmonella enterica serovar Typhi (S. Typhi) is a human restricted pathogen. It biosynthesizes a virulence capsular polysaccharide named as Vi antigen. S. Typhi regulates expression of genes involved in the biosynthesis of Vi antigen in response to osmolarity. Beside Vi-positive isolates, Vi-negative (acapsulated) isolates are also pathogenic. However, Vi-positive isolates are more prevalent. The present study was planned to investigate comparative growth of Vi-positive and Vi-negative S. Typhi isolates in an ex vivo human whole blood model. Four isolates of each type were tested for growth in human whole blood and in an enrichment medium (Tryptic soy broth-TSB) as a control. It was found that capsulated (Vi-positive) strains formed smooth circular colonies and grew with shorter lag and generation time than Vi-negative isolates. Overall growth pattern of S. Typhi isolates both in vitro and ex vivo conditions showed that Vi-positive isolates grew at a faster rate. Especially in human blood, the lag time of acapsulated isolates was almost doubled as compared to capsulated S. Typhi isolates. It was also observed that Vi-negative isolates reduced in number up to 81 % during the first 12 hours of incubation in human whole blood. Interestingly, both types of isolates had similar growth curve in TSB indicating that Vi capsule is dispensable for bacterial growth in vitro. This study shows for the first time that absence of capsular antigen retards the growth of Vi-negative isolates on initial contact with human blood, but with passage of time they adjust themselves according to the new environment