Commodity trade between Pakistan and the US: is there evidence of the J-curve?

A few studies that have attempted to estimate the short-run (J-curve) and long-run impact of exchange rate depreciation on Pakistan’s trade balance are either based on aggregate trade data between Pakistan and the rest of the world or between Pakistan and her bilateral trading partners. The findings are mixed at best. Considering the trade balance between Pakistan and the US, as one of its major partners, no significant effects have been discovered. Suspecting that the trade flows between the two countries could suffer from another aggregation bias, we disaggregate their trade flows by commodity and consider the trade balance of 45 industries that trade between the two countries. We find significant short-run effects of currency depreciation on the trade balance of 17 industries. The short-run effects last into the long run in 15 cases. The largest industry that account for more than 10% of the trade seems to benefit from real depreciation in the long run.     

Rational, rationalizing, and reifying uses of accounting data in organizations

This paper reports the results of a longitudinal field study of information use in a public sector organization. The investigation focused on the extent to which the use of cost accounting data by military repair facilities in the U.S. fits one of three conceptual models of information use. The models reflected the technical-rational, socio-political and institutional perspectives on organisations. Data were obtained by visiting 14 military installations, interviewing 95 people in depth, examining archival data, and conducting in-depth studies of problem areas within the cost system. The study included data covering a period of 22 years. Results indicated little use of the cost data consistent with the technical-rational perspective. Most uses of the data were consistent with either the social-political or institutional perspectives. The study also revealed interesting dynamic properties of the system over time such as the change in the patterns of data use from socio-political and institutional to technical-rational, and the creation of new users for the system.