Pakistan Journal of Commerce and Social Sciences (ISSN 1997-8553)
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Impact of Real Sector Variables on Shari\u27a Compliant Stock Returns
No full textShari’a compliant stocks are a recent development under Islamic finance, whereby stocks are screened through Shari’a compliance filters. This study is conducted to understand and document the important Real Sector macroeconomic factors contributing in determining stock prices of Shari’a compliant companies in Pakistan. Our sample includes all 97 non-financial companies screened by Al-Meezan Investment Management Ltd, based on financial results of 2009. We have included Six Macroeconomic variables in addition to market index in our study for ten years period (2001-10). Results identified Zero real sector variable in pricing, however, with the inclusion of market index in analysis, the single important variable in pricing of Shari’a compliant securities is market Beta. Evidence favors CAPM for pricing of securities in local market as market index captures the risk of macroeconomic variables
Problems of Common Interest: The Shaping of Education in Pakistan, 1970-2014
Get PDFThis paper examines the policy initiatives, taken since the 1970s, that have shaped the development of education in Pakistan, and other primary issues related to it. The paper reviews governmental policy documents alongside an analysis of the available relevant data on corresponding issues. This examination illuminates competing interests and factors that have made the goal of quality universal public education in Pakistan elusive. Specifically, this study reveals that the quest for universal education has been stymied by interconnected, often self-perpetuating factors, such as:- unprecedented population growth alongside increasing gender disparities, inadequate funding coupled with systemic corruption, diminished democratic aims in education and the increasing influence of religious zealotry. The paper concludes by suggesting that education in Pakistan must become a matter of common interest
What Derives Female Labor Force Participation in Muslim Countries? A Generalized Method of Moments Inference
Get PDFGlobalization and its social consequences have engendered newer trends that include increasing preferences of women to become economically active. Economic role of women has become a widely discussed topic in recent times in Muslim world. There are different perspectives and norms that determine their decision to become economically active i.e. to join the labor force. Hardly any study addresses this question with reference to Muslim world. Considering the emergence and rise of female employment in Muslim world, this paper formulates an empirical framework for the factors that affect female labor force participation (FLFP). Data is extracted from international databases World Development Indicators (WDI). For 41 Muslim countries the data was available for the time span of 2003-2013. To conduct rigorous statistical analysis of the relevant variables; we use a widely accepted robust estimation technique, known as Generalized Method of Moments (GMM). Findings of this study provide specific recommendations that are helpful in managing the emerging trends of women employment in Muslim world
Terrorism and the Response of Investors at Capital Market: A Case of Pakistan
Get PDFThe impact of terrorism on capital market of Pakistan has been examined in this research by using the ten biggest attacks of the last decade (with different targets and venue) out of a total of 941 attacks of this period. Event study methodology has been applied using one way ANOVA post-hoc and multivariate Regression techniques to investigate the impact of terrorist attacks on Karachi Stock Exchange. The results indicated that KSE is becoming insensitive to terrorist attacks. The assaults which target some important political figure and create countrywide violence can only disturb the functioning of KSE. The findings suggest that investors, unlike the stock exchanges of developed countries, should confidently invest at KSE because of numb behavior of market against terrorist attacks. However, the study has picked by only the biggest attack of every year, so future research can be made on all important attacks
Do Behavioural Biases Impact Corporate Entrepreneurship, Agency Cost and Firm Performance: Evidence from Developed and Developing Economies?
Get PDFThe study aims to extend the relationship of corporate entrepreneurship and agency cost to firm performance, in the presence of behavioral biases to address the behavioral finance approach and validate it in developed (USA) and developing (Pakistan) economies, in order to generalize the study. Behavioral biases might be different across economies, particularly infers the diverse cultures. The validated construct has been adopted to measure the corporate entrepreneurship, behavioral biases and risk perception of USA and Pakistani non-financial sector companies listed on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) and the Karachi Stock Exchange (KSE), respectively. The data for firm performance and agency cost has been taken from Balance Sheets Analyses (SBP Report) for Pakistani companies and from annual reports of the USA companies on three yearly average bases (2009, 2010 and 2011). Data has been collected from 257 USA companies and 175 Pakistani Companies listed at NYSE and KSE respectively. The finding shows that behavioral biases don’t impact the entrepreneurial orientation. The executives perform entrepreneurial activities differently, varies from individual to individual
Interlinks of Fiscal Decentralization and Public Investment in Pakistan
Get PDFPresent work is an attempt to explore intersperse of fiscal decentralization and public investment in Pakistan. The study used a time series data from 1972 to 2013 and Johansen cointegration procedure is used for empirical investigation. It is reported that in the long run, fiscal autonomy to lower tiers of governments may help to improve the tax revenue in one fold and public investment in next fold. More importantly, the addition in subnational revenue and expenditures shares in total government revenue and expenditures will improve the level of public investment and also accelerate the economy towards high economic growth in Pakistan. These findings may also supportive for other developing countries which are struggling to adopt the decentralization process like Pakistan. Finally, the study suggested that a clear mandate of fiscal responsibilities at central and provincial level is also needed to improve the benefits of fiscal decentralization in Pakistan
Does Trust Matter for Economic Growth and Human Development? Empirical Evidence from a Panel of Countries
Get PDFTrust among individuals of a society is an important dimension of social capital and may have different economic and development implications. The present study is an attempt to investigate the relationship of trust with economic growth and human development. It is unique in at least two different aspects. Firstly, it has used an index for quantifying trust which may be more comprehensive measure as compared with already used measures of trust by different research studies. The index has been constructed by taking into account different variables related with interpersonal safety and trust. Both perception-based as well as actionable indicators have been used in the construction of the index which adds to its reliability and usefulness. Secondly, the study has used paneldata for a large set of countries of the world. Panel-data framework has certain advantages over cross-country regression. Coverage of our data-set for large number of countries of the world also adds to the authenticity of our analysis. Our findings suggest that trust is not significantly associated with economic growth. However, it shows a positive and significant effect on human development. Hence, instead of having direct effect on economic growth, trust may affect economic growth indirectly through its positive effects on human development. The study will be helpful in enhancing the understanding regarding the role of trust in determining economic growth and human development
Mediated Mechanism of Thriving at Work between Perceived Organization Support, Innovative Work Behavior and Turnover Intention
Get PDFThriving at work is a positive psychological state in which individuals experience a sense of vitality and learning. This study is an attempt to analyze thriving at work with two important outcome variables (innovative work behavior and turnover intention) and also examines how perceived organization support transforms individual’s psychological states. Using hierarchical linear modeling on an actual sample of 147 employees from a software house, strong support has been found for all the theory-driven hypothesized statements, including the mediating mechanism of thriving at work. This study is probably the first to analyze the mediating mechanism of thriving at work between perceived organization support and innovative work behavior, and turnover intention. The findings of this study significantly contribute to the better understanding of behavior and particularly to the most developing concept of ‘thriving at work’. The study concludes by starring theoretical and practical implications for workers’ thriving and suggesting directions for further empirical investigations. However, there are certain limitations as the participants were taken from a single organization. Hence, future studies are required to achieve generalizability of the phenomenon under study
Marginality and Multidimensional Poverty: A Case Study of Christian Community of Lahore, Pakistan
Get PDFMarginality and social exclusion are the pertinent concepts that researchers have tried to link directly or indirectly with the universal issues of poverty and resource constraints. This research tries to find out the extent of multidimensional poverty and its determinants among Christian community living in the slums of the Lahore city of Pakistan, after considering them at the margin of socio-economic systems due to some causal complexes that exclude them from the growth prospects. The urban context is the particular focus of this paper. On the basis of the analytical framework developed, study examines the relationship between marginality and poverty in a systematic manner and investigates the multidimensional poverty among the identified marginal group through a self-administered survey of 1380 individuals belonging to this minority group. We find these people as multidimensional poor, when we apply Alkire and Foster (2011) methodology. The study calculates intensity, depth and severity (M0, M1, and M2) measures of poverty to show more than half of population as multidimensional poor. The later analysis makes the use of Logit and Probit regression techniques to exhibit a strong impact of socio-economic and demographic determinants on the poverty profiles of Christian community
A Revisit of Pecking Order Theory versus Trade-off Theory: Evidence from Pakistan
Get PDFThe objective of this study is to investigate which of the two competing theoretic frameworks; pecking order theory (POT) or trade-off theory (TOT); better explains the corporate leverage behaviour in Pakistan. For this purpose, we use fixed effects model on a large unbalanced panel data comprising of 13,026 firm-year observations of non-financial firms listed on Karachi Stock Exchange Pakistan during 1972-2010 Our results indicate that leverage has two pervasive and significant relationships. First, leverage is negatively related to current and past profitability. Second, leverage is positively related to past dividends. In addition, empirical results present a reasonable support to POT regarding growth. However, POT gets nominal empirical support in Pakistan regarding firm size. The results of this study will help the corporate managers to better formulate the leverage policy