Macroeconomic Factors Determining the Growth of Pakistan

This study attempts to explore the relation ofExternal Debt, Terms of Trade, Education,Military expenditures, Consumer Price Index, and GrossDomestic Production of Pakistan throughout 1997-2019. Toestimate the targeted objectives of this research AutoRegressive Distributive Lags (ARDL) technique was used. Theresults revealed some facts that Military expenditures andeducation were essential to achieve the goal of the high growthrate of the economy in the form of Gross Domestic Production.So policymakers should adopt strong strategies. Educationshould be as skilled and technical as possible and producemilitary equipment to save foreign exchange. CPI, TOT, andExd should be properly regulated because of their negativeimpact on GDP. CPI affects the people, so fiscal policy shouldbe adopted. Without external debt, governments feel helpless,so breaking this trap is essential for dignity and development.The model has a dampening convergence towards equilibrium

Colonialism to Neo-Colonialism: The Chinese Use of Foreign Direct Investment and the Case of Pakistan

The practice of neo-colonialism was initially introduced by the United States through the establishment of institutions like the Bretton Woods Institutions (IMF and World Bank) and continuing the legacy, China soon took over and had been using FDI to further its neo-colonial agenda in various parts of the world, including Pakistan. This research explores the history of colonization in the Sub-Continent and traces the origins of neo-colonization with a focus of the United States as a pioneer of the practice and China as the contemporary neo-colonizer. The research traces the transition from colonialism to neo-colonialism and examines the case of Pakistan as a victim of neo-colonialism, presenting the case based on evidence. The paper concludes that neo-colonialism is indeed colonialism with a changed outlook and proposes certain recommendations for Pakistan to minimize the impact of Chinese colonialism.

Water, Sanitation, and Malnutrition in Pakistan: Challenge for Sustainable Development

This paper aims to analyze the water, sanitation, and malnutrition situation in Pakistan and to evaluate the sustainable development goals situation. To find the association, this study applies a chi-square test utilizing a sample of 3,575 children of age less than five years, extracted from the data of Pakistan Demographic and Health Survey (PDHS) 2017-18. The results of chi-square show that underweight and stunting have a significant association with water and sanitation in Pakistan. Pakistan's progress in sustainable development goals is yet slow, especially targets of goal 3 and goal 6, which are far behind other countries of the region. The study concludes that there is a need to allocate more resources in programs such as water, sanitation, nutrition, and poverty reduction to uplift the socio-economic standard of the common folk.

Women Status in Labour Market of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa

This study analyses the woman's status labour market of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. Four working states: self-employed, paid employees, and unpaid family helpers were investigated. Data were collected about individuals and household characteristics of women aged between (15-60) years from the Pakistan Social and Living Standard Measurement Survey (PSLM, 2014-15). The estimated results based on Multinomial Logit (MNL) suggest a positive and significant impact of women's age on all working categories in the labour market. The woman who owns a house, or the married woman, with multiple children or having a combined family system, or the residents of the countryside have less likelihood to take part in paid works. Participation in paid works decreases with the increase in the number of children, whereas participation in self-employment increases with the increase in the number of children. The probability of female participation in all four working states increases with the increase in the number of working individuals in the family. Whereas, probability of women's participation in the labor market decrease with the Joint family system, house owning, marriage, or higher household income.

Initiation of Housing Micro Finance in Pakistan: A New Paradigm Shift in Housing Market

Housing is the third most important necessity of a human being. Every human being needs a housing unit to live in. Recently, with globalization and urbanization, the demand for housing has increased manifold, whereas the supply has remained the same. Similarly, in Pakistan, the value of land and building in urban areas increased exponentially. The lowincome class could not afford a housing unit as they did not have the resources to buy or construct a housing unit at once. With new trends, the low-income people would buy a piece of land on the urban periphery and construct the housing unit in increments. The availability of funds was the key factor in this approach. With the availability of microfinance services in the market, the availability of funds has increased for the low-income groups. The research aims to study the difference between the working of different financing institutes and banks and to formulate recommendations based on the collected data.

Impact of Exchange Rate Volatility on Unemployment in Pakistan

Unemployment is an alarming issue for bothdeveloped and developing countries, which sometimesvaries from region to region as well. Unemployment accompaniedwith Exchange Rate Volatility (ERV, hereafter) worsens thesituation. This paper tries to explore the relationship between ERVand unemployment and other selected factors in the case ofPakistan from 1980 to 2018. After necessary simulation, the studysupported the analyses through the autoregressive distributed lagmodel. Where, long-run coefficient reveals that ERV and exportsboth are positively affecting unemployment; whereas, import isinversely related to unemployment. Alternatively, export and GDPare inversely affecting unemployment in the short run; further,stability tests also support the relationship between the selectedvariables to achieve the long-run equilibrium. The study furthersuggests that the Government of Pakistan need to stabilizeexchange rate to control unemployment, which is 8 percent in thelong-run and 11 percent in the short run.

FATF and Terror Financing: The Perspective of Pakistan

There is a plethora of international organizations that has been formed to maintain peace in the world. FATF is such an organization that has been formed in order to scrutinize and control the menace of money laundering and that of the terror financing. In a third world state like Pakistan where there is dearth of transparent mechanisms of money transfers and where there is no rule of law, it has become easy for the individuals to carry out the illicit activities like money laundering (Dube and Vargas, 2013). Pakistan has been in the grey list from the last few years and it has dramatically affected the economy of Pakistan. Pakistan has established a number of centralized mechanisms that are, without a doubt, on the correct track for monitoring the financial transaction system, which is currently very near to meet the certain much needed criteria for finding and freezing the founded and highlighted money laundering cases and that of the terrorist financing.

Strategic and Economic Importance of Chabahar Port

Due to China's engagement in the Gwadar Port,India has hastened the process of becoming ashareholder and stakeholder in Chabahar Port in order tocounter the Chinese threat. Chabahar is India's gateway toCentral and South Asia. It is Iran's intention to link and accessthese countries through the building of the Chabahar Port. Withthe expansion of these connections between South Asia andCentral Asia, West Asian countries and Europe via Chabahar,not only will Iran gain, but so will the nations of these regions.Iran will be able to play a key role as a result of these linkages,which will increase the strategic importance of Iran andChabahar.

IPO Intra Industry Effects on Peer Firm's Earnings, Composition and Stock Returns

The present study is conducted to see how an IPO event affects the existing firm's performance within the same industry. For this purpose, 88 IPO firms were examined from Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX) from 1998-2016. IPO is examined from three major perspectives IPO proceeds, initial returns and time Lag between IPO listing date and IPO subscription. The study uses Buy and Hold Abnormal Returns (BHAR) and Cumulative Abnormal Returns (CAR) to calculate competitor's abnormal returns. To calculate the operating performance of competitors, the Wilcoxon significance test was applied. IPO intra-industry effects are significant in the long run, whereas insignificant results are shown in the short run. In addition, IPO proceeds and abnormal returns are significant but negatively related to competitors' stock returns (long term). Moreover, Herfindahl Hirschman Index (HHI) finds IPO improves competitiveness in the industry environment. This present study is an important one from an emerging economy perspective.

Road to Openness: Implications of Globalization for Education in Pakistan

The current study discusses the implications ofglobalization for education in Pakistan. Time seriesdata from 1980 to 2019 has been used. KOF Index of globalizationhas been used as a composite measure of globalization. This indexis based on three aspects of globalization: economic, social, andpolitical. For education, the study employed the annual data forthe adult literacy rate. Other supporting variables are governmentexpenditures, private consumption, and urban population. Thelong-run and short-run relationships have been determined byusing Johansen Co-integration and VECM, respectively. Theempirical results unequivocally show the existence of co-integration, which confirms the presence of a long-run relationshipin the model. The negative and significant value of the ECT (-1)term further defends the existence of the long-run relationship. Thestudy suggests that government should take measures to maximizethe fruits of globalization.