A cointegration approach to modeling human capital formation,self-employment,and economic growth: evidence from Pakistan

This study aims to empirically investigate the dynamics of relationship among human capital formation, self-employment (SE), and economic growth in Pakistan. Using quarterly data of primary school enrollment, SE, and GDP per capita, we employed ARDL bound testing approach to cointegration covering the time span of 1995–2010. We found that in the long run, primary school enrollment, high school enrollment and SE have significant impact on economic growth. Enrollment in primary schools (EP) has a strong positive and significant impact on economic growth, whereas enrollment in high school has a relatively small positive and significant impact on economic growth in the long run in Pakistan. Further, SE has a small, positive and significant impact on economic growth in the long run. In short run, enrollments in high schools and SE have weak positive impact on economic growth whereas, EP has a strong positive and significant impact on economic growth in Pakistan. Further it is found that that there is unidirectional long run causality from self employment to economic growth followed by the bidirectional short run causality between economic growth and high school enrollment, GDP per capita and primary school enrollment, high school enrollment and primary school enrollment.     

Predicament of identity in Iran: a qualitative meta-analysis of theoretical and empirical studies on identity

Identity is regarded as a theoretical and practical problematic issue constituting a large range of literature in social planning, political activities and cultural policy-making in the last decades. Thus, this study is to Meta-analyze three sorts of studies on identity in a distinctive perspective. These are: universal theories of identity, theoretical studies of identity in Iran and research studies on Iranian identity in Iranian academic sphere. The findings demonstrate that the sociological theories are more effective to discuss identity than other scientific fields. While the theoretical studies focused mainly on national level of identity, the empirical ones highlighted the sub-nation and global dimensions of identity. Most of studied researches employed constructivist approach. According to literature review of identity studies in Iran, the main sources of identity are the Persian language, Shiite religion, Islam, Oriental Culture, Oriental Mysticism, Modernity and National History. Generally, the sources of identity are diverse. The results indicate that the constitution of Iranian identity portrays a hybrid and synthetic texture in all levels.     

Empirical earnings functions for Iran

Some recent studies have debated the appropriateness of semi-log earnings function in approximating actual earnings profiles. This study contributes further to this debate by estimating four specifications of earnings function, namely, semi-log quadratic, semi-log cubic, quadratic and cubic with cross section data for 4035 full-time urban male earners in Iran for 1993. The analysis shows that the semi-log quadratic earnings function fits the actual empirical earnings profiles very poorly. The quadratic earnings function provides a much better approximation to the actual earnings. Measures of out-of-sample prediction errors also show the superiority of quadratic function over others.     

Correction to: The Inhibitory Effect of Political Conservatism on Consumption: The Case of Fair Trade

Journal of Business Ethics - A correction to this paper has been published: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-021-04780-w     

The International Transmission of Money Market Fluctuations

This study analyzes the interdependence of money markets in Belgium, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, and the United States. The authors estimate a vector-autoregression system using daily data on three-month money market rates from December 31, 1979, through February 28, 1990. Consistent with the notion of informational efficiency, money markets respond very rapidly to a shock in any one country. The U.S. market plays a leading role, in that the after-effects of a shock there are much stronger and last much longer than those of a shock elsewhere. In contrast with previous studies on stock markets, the responses are larger and more persistent, the markets are less interdependent, and the U.S. market is relatively less influential.     

Inequality and Poverty in China: Institutional Change and Public Policy, 1978 to 1988

There is considerable uncertainty and debate about changes inpoverty and living standards that are likely to occur in aneconomy in transition from centrally planned allocations toa more market-oriented basis, but a dearth of evidence and rigorousanalysis remains. There is a tradeoff between policies thatprovide a guaranteed living standard with low inequality, albeitat a low income level, and systems that provide much highermonetary incomes, but create greater income variability andvulnerability, particularly during periods of high inflation.The Chinese experience following the economic reforms of 1978highlights this dilemma, and our analysis strongly suggeststhe need for appropriate social safety nets if rapid growthis to be achieved without the poor and vulnerable bearing thecosts of such growth.     

Vertical Integration,Foreign Multinationals and Stigler's Hypotheses: An Empirical Test Using Malaysian Data*

In this paper the hypotheses on motives for vertical integration as proposed by Stigler are empirically tested using a panel dataset from Malaysian manufacturing under both fixed‐effects and random‐effects specifications. Because the degree of multinational participation is expected to influence the results of the regression estimates, empirical tests are conducted with and without controlling for the effect of foreign firms’ participation. Depending on model specifications, evidence is found in favor of Stigler's hypotheses where vertical integration is positively related to demand growth and industry concentration. This result is generally consistent with those found in other vertical integration studies. Significantly, the coefficient estimates of the growth variable are not significant and biased downwards if there is no control on the effect of foreign multinationals in the estimation process.     

How important is the financial sector to price indices in an inflation targeting regime? An empirical analysis of the UK and the US

This paper investigates whether there are benefits in terms of higher economic stability from incorporating stock prices into the price index targeted by the central banks. It also looks into the question of whether central banks should use stock prices as a component of the output stability index and how the index can be constructed. An optimization technique is employed to estimate weights for the various sectoral prices. The obtained weights, which depend on sectoral parameters, differ from those used in the construction of the consumer price index, CPI. Using data from the UK and the US, our analysis demonstrates that in comparison to the CPI, our measure of inflation leads to a higher output stability. Thus, in an inflation-targeting monetary policy environment, it is important to adopt a broader inflation benchmark than the CPI for the general macroeconomic stability.     

Constructing Fama–French Factors from Style Indices: Evidence from the Islamic Equity Market

This study has contributed to the analysis of the Fama–French three-factor model by proving the validity of model using the newly constructed Fama–French factors from Malaysian Islamic stock market. With generalized method of moments and robustness tests, our results compliment earlier studies by comparing the results over two sub-periods, before and after the financial crises and the fall of Lehman Bros. The results of the analysis suggest that the reversal of size effects exists after periods of financial crisis. This is the first attempt to create FF factors and test the model from Islamic equity style indices.     

Dynamics of relational goods

We propose a model of social relationships in which relational goods are the results of individual joint efforts and past attitudes toward socialising. We show the effect of individual different inclinations toward social relationships on the dynamic properties of the system either assuming homogeneous or heterogeneous individuals. Particularly, we show the role assumed by the environment and past experience of individuals on the dynamic outcome. We use a triangular finite-different system to investigate these issues. We analyse the conditions for the convergence of the system to a low-socialising trap and we propose a few policy corrections to get out of it.