Policies and strategies for sustainable development in Bangladesh

The concept of sustainable development, its relevance for Bangladesh, and policies and strategies for promoting it in Bangladesh are discussed. Economic growth, population growth, mobilization of resources, the role of women, devolution and decentralization, equity and protection of the environmental base are treated as key issues, with emphasis given to the effective implementation of strategies for promoting sustainable development.     

Firms cash management,adjustment cost and its impact on firms’ speed of adjustment: a cross country analysis

Review of Quantitative Finance and Accounting - We investigate the firms’ specific attributes that determine the difference in speed of adjustment (SOA) towards the cash holdings target in...     

Energy consumption and economic growth: evidence from non-OPEC oil producing states

According to the US EIA (2009, www.eia.doe.gov), out of the 15 largest oil producing nations in the world, 7 are not OPEC members, namely Brazil, Canada, China, Mexico, Norway, the Russian Federation, and the United States of America (USA). This paper investigates the causal relationship between energy consumption and economic growth for these non-OPEC oil producing countries. Real GDP per capita is used to measure economic growth; whereas; energy consumption is represented by four sub-variables (electric power, oil, natural gas, and coal energy). Using a panel data covering (1969–2009), this study employs the Pedroni (Econometric Theory, 20, 597–627, 2004) approach to determine cointegration and the (Econometrica, 55, 251–276, 1987) two-step procedure to explore short and long run causal effects. The results suggest that there are long run relationships between the real GDP, labour force, real capital, oil consumption, electricity consumption, gas consumption and coal consumption. Further analyses show that real GDP and oil consumption Granger cause real gross capital formation in the short run; real gross fixed capital and electricity consumption cause oil consumption in the short run; and also oil consumption and gas consumption cause electricity consumption in the short run.     

The nexus between sectoral FDI and institutional quality: empirical evidence from Pakistan

This study investigates short- and long-run bidirectional causality between institutional quality and sectoral-level FDI in Pakistan by using the ARDL technique. The results confirm that long-run bidirectional causality exists between institutional quality and aggregate FDI. The in-depth sectoral-level FDI analysis substantiates the presence of long-run bidirectional causality between institutional quality and FDI in services and manufacturing sectors, while no long-run causality is observed between institutional quality and FDI inflows in primary sector. Furthermore, the results in the study reveal short-run bidirectional causality only between institutional quality and manufacturing FDI and report insignificant short-run causal link between institutional quality and FDI in primary and services sectors. The overall findings of the study suggest that in the long-run institutional quality attract FDI and FDI inflows, particularly to manufacturing and services sectors, significantly enhance the quality of institutions in Pakistan.     

Lockup Agreements and Survival of UK IPOs

This paper examines the role of lockup agreements on the survival of 580 UK Initial Public Offerings (IPOs) during the period of 1990–2011. Our accelerated failure time (AFT) survival model shows a statistically and economically significant effect of lockup length on the post‐IPO survival. A 12 month increase in median lockup period increases the (median) survival time by 27%. Furthermore, the failure rates for IPOs with longer lockups are consistently lower than the failure rates for IPOs with shorter lockups regardless of delisting reasons. The results are robust to choice of different survival estimation models, heterogeneity, clustering, and alternative specification of variables. Our results highlight the importance of lockup characteristics on the subsequent survival of newly listed firms and inform recent debate regarding alleged short‐termism in the UK equity market.     

Does economic liberalization promote economic growth in Pakistan? An empirical analysis

The study aims to examine the short and long term impacts of economic liberalization on economic growth in case of Pakistan from 1971 to 2011. Economic liberalization consists of reforms in both trade liberalization and financial liberalization. This study contributes to the existing literature by constructing an economic liberalization index using principal component analysis. Our results show, firstly, that economic liberalization reforms have a positive impact on economic growth in the short run. However, trade liberalization is negatively associated with economic growth in the long-run. Secondly, the estimated coefficients through rolling window show that impact of economic liberalization on real GDP is unstable during the selected period of sample. This study recommends to policy makers to enhance human capital by having more expenditure on education sector. In addition, financial reforms by way of a sectoral credit allocation should be introduced to further promote the economic growth.     

Higher education and growth performance of Pakistan: evidence from multivariate framework

This study investigates the relationship between higher education and economic growth in Pakistan by using the annual time series data from the period of 1980–2011. The ARDL bound testing cointegration approach confirms the valid positive relationship between higher education development and economic growth in long run as well as in short run. Results of Granger causality test, Toda and Yamamoto Modified Wald causality test and variance decomposition test confirm the bidirectional causal relationship between higher education and economic growth in Pakistan. Results of rolling window estimations suggest that the contribution of higher education in economic growth is significantly increased after the formation of higher education commission of Pakistan in 2002. It is clear from our findings that higher education commission plays an important role in the development of higher education in Pakistan which leads to enhance economic growth. It is recommended that policy makers should make policies to strengthen the higher education commission to ensure continuous and rapid economic growth in Pakistan.