15 research outputs found
Key interventions to solve the problems of informal abodes of the third world, due to poor infrastructure
No full textAbstractDue to self-perpetuating growth of cities, urban population is increasing by 50 million per year in the developing world alone. Inability of authorities to respond adequately and greater autonomy or dweller control in the production of housing, in almost all developing countries, has resulted in informal settlements with poor physical infrastructure, which is an integral part of any sustainable human settlement. These diverse settlements share some attributes for instance, environments are conceived and constructed by the occupants themselves independently, without any professional advice; second occupation and construction frequently take place simultaneously; and these informal settlements are usually taking place in suburban and urban surroundings. Along with reporting on the research which attempted to provide a partial remedy to this situation, this paper indicates possible interventions to upgrade these informal settlements. It requires progressive improvement of infrastructure, new type of settlement master plans, strong commitment and involvement of the communities to be served in the planning, decision-making, implementation and management processes. Different types of interventions can be applied to transform an illegal and substandard environment into an acceptable and liveable place. International support and collaboration undoubtedly play a significant role in mainstreaming these low-income settlements in the developing world through technical and capital intensive interventions. Informal settlements constitute extremely complex environments, and for an intervention to be successful, it has to be able to deal with this complexity and should be based upon good precedent and strong theoretical foundations
Cultural Values, Diversity and Economic Growth in South Asian Region
No full textThis study represents an attempt at measuring the impact of certain cultural factors on economic growth in South Asian region. Cultural factors are incorporated into baseline endogenous economic growth model applied by using relevant data from the World Values Survey/European Value Survey (1981-20014). By using the ordinary least squares method in a growth regression framework, we have determined the impact of cultural factors on economic growth by estimating certain equations. The results have shown that cultural attitudes towards trust have positive and significant impact on economic growth. The surprising results are evident that ethnic fractionalization and religious fraction both have significant positive relation with economic growth in this region.
Cultural and Economic Growth: Does the Specific Matrix of Cultural Values Have Dissimilar Impact on Rich and Poor Countries?
No full textThis study signifies an endeavor at measuring the influence of certain cultural features on economic growths. The notion of the role of cultural factors in economic development and growth has come across considerable confrontation. The reason for this opposition is related with understanding of cultural tenets as being broadly subtle and lasting features of societies. While the average economic opinions are obviously enough for explaining global differences in savings and growth rates, supplementary empirical research can help in ascertaining such cultural factors as may be relevant to analyze economic development. Cultural factors are incorporated into baseline endogenous economic growth model applied by using the relevant data from the World Values Survey/European Value Survey (1981-2011) on fifteen cultural variables combined with standard economic variables in developed and developing regions of world economy. The results have shown that cultural attitudes towards trust have a positive and significant impact on economic growth in both regions. Further, the Hofstede component of culture, Schwartz cultural dimensions and Trompenaars egalitarian commitment and utilitarian involvement are found to be significant determinants of regional economic performance in developed countries. Yet, the same cultural variables do not have a significant impact in developing world. The cultural attitudes about religious and ethnic diversity are found to be negatively related with economic growth of the regions chosen for the analysis. The ethnic disintegration and religious fractionalization with ethnic and religious polarization seem to be a better measure to capture the effect of growth. The ethnic fractionalization show a positive effect on economic growth in economically rich region, where the religious polarization has a significant negative impact on growth in developing regions. Ethnic fractionalization index may not be harmful to development, but the effects of religious polarization on development are more adverse. The religious variable (raised religiously at home) is negatively associated with GDP growth in both regions with weak links. Keywords: Economic growth, Cultural values, Ethnic and religious Fractionalization, Ethnic and religious Polarization, Cultural Motivational Index
Sustainability in South Asian city
No full textSouth Asia is one of most densely populated region in the world. Currently, 28.33% of the South Asian population lives in urban areas, with an annual growth rate of 2.92%. Shifting of jobs from agriculture to industry and the concentration of economic opportunities in urban areas are causing tremendous increase in urbanisation in the region, which is seriously affecting the environment, and poses strong challenges to governments in terms of the infrastructure and services. In this article, we will give an overview of urbanisation problems in South Asia. We will also suggest some key interventions for sustainable development in the region. Urbanisation problems in South Asia are manifested in the form of lopsided urbanisation and faulty urban planning with poor economic base. Urban poverty has been increasing in the region, resulting in the growth of a massive number of slums. As a manifestation of social injustice and the social divide, slums exclude the poor from accessing the basic amenities. South Asia has the highest regional urbanisation of poverty at any given overall urbanisation. Concerted government efforts with long-term commitment at the highest political levels are required to reduce urban poverty and deprivation. The way cities are growing in the region is not at all sustainable, with a clear imbalance between economic, environmental, socio-political and technological aspects. Sustainable communities can be established by focusing on social and human development programmes to develop intangible assets in the community such as inclusion, tolerance, public participation, and democratic governance, which do not depreciate through use but rather become more valuable the more they are used. Place matters in different ways, which have yet to be fully appreciated and incorporated into how planners teach place. But it needs to directly adopt the Bottom-up Approach to provide solutions for the problems going on in the cities of the region. More participatory methodologies need to be adopted, while taking decisions about urban space. The future of urban sustainability can only succeed when there is integration of environmental thinking into mainstream economic and development decisions with knowledge based strategic urban planning as well as urban pedagogy
A Comparative Analysis of Pre and Post Privatization Efficiency of Pakistani Banks
No full textIn this study, we present estimates of changes in productivity and efficiencies of privatized banks in Pakistan during the period 1987-2014. We measure the performance of banks by cost-effectiveness and technical efficiency of five leading banks of Pakistan. All estimated results are statistically significant and support the general hypotheses that increase the efficiency and productivity after privatization
Cultural Values and Economic Development: A Review and Assessment of Recent Studies
No full textGrowing interest and controversy regarding the role of cultural values in economic world has been observed in recent years. This paper investigates recent studies regarding the effect of culture on economic growth and development. The independence of an individual could be down played by any sort of continuity and concession to the economic success. It is pertinent to view Western concept of tradition/modernity framework which advocates rejection of traditional cultural structures of developing world to access ‘modernity’. However, empirical research indicates the both enormous change in cultural values and the persistence of idiosyncratic cultural traditions even within “developed countries”. Similarly, various studies have contended that so-called “modern societies” are themselves entrenched in explicit cultures, although their institutions are following “universal” principles. They demonstrate that “the existence of such cultural continuity does not prevent a succession of forms of social organization in the same country that are different from each other in many respects”. It is a matter of fact that causality is a difficult issue, nevertheless, confirmation is progressively in favor of a causal effect from the economic condition to cultural interpretations. Subsequently, the enormous challenge for economic growth and development still needs to view our comprehension that how the varied culture or social organization conversion in a particular given society is pronounced with more strong and resilient reference settings
Post-COVID 19 Tourism: Will Digital Tourism Replace Mass Tourism?
No full textRecently, nations are struggling to mitigate the impact of the unprecedented COVID-19 outbreak on their economy. Many countries have imposed traveling restrictions to reduce people’s movement in order to avoid infection transmission. Traveling restrictions have jeopardized the tourism industry around the globe. If the situation persists, it will become challenging for the nations to open tourism. For this reason, the digitalization of tourism is a viable solution for this situation. However, it is essential to map whether digital technologies can provide alternative solutions to the situation and whether digital tourism can replace conventional tourism? With that backdrop, this study has two objectives: (a) to find the future of digital tourism development beyond the COVID-19 pandemic situation, and (b) to find collaborative research work among nations to develop digital tourism after the current pandemic crisis. To achieve these objectives, we conducted a systematic literature review of past research on the development of digital tourism from 2016–2020. The study applies the PRISMA-2015 statement to select and synthesize 60 articles from Scopus and ‘Web of Science’ databases. Content analysis was performed to analyze the underlying clusters of research on digital tourism and, later, bibliometric analysis was conducted to examine collaborative research between different countries. The findings highlighted three major research clusters namely; virtual reality tourism, virtual tourism, and augmented reality. In addition, the research finding shows that virtual tourism is a practical and valuable option for mass tourism during the COVID-19 outbreak and can replace mass tourism after the pandemic. Although virtual tourism does not feel like a visit to a natural destination, it is still getting attention from tourists. Virtual spaces must develop more features and value additions to achieve tourist satisfaction in the future
Does the Specific Matrix of Cultural Values and Ethnic- Religious Diversity Hinder Economic Development in African Region?
No full textAbstract This study empirically probes the role of culture in fostering or hindering economic performance in Africa. Our results show that cultural values appear to some extant have statistically significant and operationally meaningful economic effects. We also test the effect of ethnic and religious diversity which discourage economic growth. Using the OLS method, we appraised the baseline endogenous economic growth model to incorporate cultural variables. Cultural attitudes toward trust and self-determination were found to affect economic development significantly. However, respect was associated with unexpected signs of an inverse relationship with economic growth. Further, the cultural motivational index (CMI) was also negatively associated with growth. This implies that the traditional values of African culture do not lend support to economic growth. While the ethnic and religious fractionalization may not be harmful to development, ethnic and religious polarization affects the development more adversely
Monetary Policy Reaction Function and Sterilization of Capital Inflows: An Analysis of Asian Countries
No full textSynthesis, immunomodulation and cytotoxic effects of vanadium (IV) complexes
No full textVanadium is known to exhibit several bioactivities and shows potential as a pharmaceutical drug. The current studies were conducted with the goal of synthesizing a new generation of oxovanadium(IV) complexes, investigating their effects on cancer cell proliferation and their immunomodulatory properties, and predicting possible structure activity relationships. The elucidation of the structures of the synthesized complexes was achieved using elemental analysis, conductivity measurements, magnetic property measurements, and IR and electronic spectroscopies. These studies suggest that the synthesized complexes have a binuclear structure. All of the complexes were evaluated on different cancer cell lines, including HeLa, PC-3, and C33A, and on the normal 3T3 fibroblast cells. Some of the compounds exhibited prominent inhibitory activities on the cervical cancer cell lines and the prostate cancer PC-3 cells. The immunomodulatory activity of the vanadium compounds was evaluated on human phagocytes for ROS (reactive oxygen species) production using luminol- and lucigenin-based chemiluminescence assays. No potent effect was exerted by the majority of the tested compounds on whole blood oxidative burst activity. A study of human T-cells proliferation in vitro on vanadium complexes was also conducted. The majority of the compounds were observed to exhibit potent inhibitory effects. The superoxide, nitric oxide and DPPH (2,2-diphenyl-1- picrylhydrazyl) radical scavenging properties were also determined.Scopu
