Does Gender Inequality Lead to State Failure? A Global Perspective

By: Sami Ullah, Arshad Ali Bhatti, Tanveer Ahmad Naveed

The objective of this paper is to theoretically and empirically investigate the impact of gender inequality on state failure, taking to a global perspective. The ratio of female to male labor force participation has been used as a proxy for gender equality and the Fragile State Index of Fund for Peace has been used to classify state failure. This study has used panel data of 142 countries for the period 2006-2016 and employed the fixed effects method to reach the conclusion that gender inequality does indeed significantly lead to state failure in all regions of the globe. The crux of this study, however, is the negative effect of gender inequality on global order in the process of sustainable development. In addition to that, agricultural employment and children out of school too cause for the dwindling strength of states all over the world. All our findings reiterate the need for a comprehensive plan for the provision of economic opportunities to females for the prosperity of all developing regions of the globe. Gender inequality is one of the most significant factors that reflect their backwardness, and the expansion of opportunities, along with a feasible working environment, will bring positive change to the sustainability of their economies. 

Publication Link: https://uog.edu.pk/en/PJSI/issues/Vol-X

On the Monetary Measures of Global Liquidity

By: Israr Ahmad Shah Hashmi, Arshad Ali Bhatti

Abstract:

This study constructs and examines the dynamics of theoretical and atheoretical measures of global liquidity, using monthly data on the components of broad money over the period 2001 M12-2017 M12 for 39 high income countries. We group the countries into five regional blocks as categorized by the World Bank: East Asia and the Pacific, Europe and Central Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean, Middle East and North Africa, and North America. The atheoretical measures exploited by this study comprise of the simple-sum, GDP-weighted growth rates and PCA based aggregation methods; whereas theoretical measures include the currency equivalent and Divisia index techniques of monetary aggregation. We employ a graphical approach to investigate the trends and dynamics of the aggregates overtime, and a cross-correlation between cyclical components of global real economic activity and the lag of cyclical components of the measures of global liquidity to gauge the strength of their associations. The findings of this study reveal that theoretical measures outperform atheoretical ones in effective delineation of financial and liquidity conditions, and policy stance. Their cyclical components are also strongly associated with those of global real business activity. The currency equivalent measure, besides being a leading indicator of the shift in policy stance, has a sturdy association with global real business activity. Moreover, the theoretical measures, as noted by some empirical studies, contain some information content that the atheoretical lack.

Pub. Link: https://jfin-swufe.springeropen.com/articles/10.1186/s40854-019-0134-4

Impacts of Oil Discovery on Households in Uganda: A CGE Analysis

By: Koire Twaha, Arshad Ali Bhatti, Hasnain A. Naqvi

Abstract

This study analyses the impact of oil discovery on household poverty and inequality by employing a CGE model using 2007 SAM for Uganda. The oil production and export simulations show a decline in absolute poverty, poverty gaps, and severity. Further, our findings showcase a positive effect of production and exports on household welfare, except for urban farm households. This study recommends for the managers of the economy to pay special attention towards injection of a reasonable portion of oil rent in sectors which positively contribute to the economy, diversify non-oil exports and above all, boost private consumption.

Pub. Link: https://publishing.globalcsrc.org/ojs/index.php/reads/article/view/391/539

Causality among Stock Market and Macroeconomic Factors: A Comparison of Conventional and Islamic Stocks

By: Muhammad Hanif & Arshad Ali Bhatti

A recent development in financial markets is the creation of Shar¯ı‘ah compliant stock universes. Shar¯ı‘ah compliant stock universe is featured as socially responsible investments, less levered, and more reflective of the real sector. This study is conducted to understand and document the short-run equilibrium among important macroeconomic indicators and Equity indexesIslamic and conventional in the post-Shar¯ı‘ah-screening era in Pakistan. Comparative study of linkages among stock indexes and macroeconomic variables is of great interest to i) identify the important macroeconomic factors; and ii) document whether Shar¯ı‘ah screening of stocks has created any difference (in macro risk factors). We have included eight macroeconomic variables to study integration with stocks for 64 Months’ period (07/2011-10/2016). Evidence has been obtained by application of correlation, unit root, OLS-regression and Granger causality tests. Findings suggest that both markets Islamic & conventional are integrated with selected macroeconomic indicators. However, evidence lacks the integration of markets themselves. We identify a set of two variables from real economy exports and workers’ remittances-linked with both markets, while the third variable is different for Islamic (industrial production) and conventional (Money Supply (MS)) markets. Important monetary variables interest rate and inflation have shown an insignificant association. Movements of Islamic index are in-line with the theory i.e., disassociation from interest and reflection of the real economy. Movements of conventional index cover both real and monetary sectors.

Publication Link: https://jibm.org/archieves/volume8-issue2/volume8-issue2-article5/

Do power sector reforms affect electricity prices in selected Asian countries?

By: Tauqir Ahmed & Arshad Ali Bhatti

This paper examines the impact of power sector reforms on electricity prices using panel data for selected Asian countries over the period 1970–2017. We estimate two separate models for domestic and industrial prices. Our results from pooled OLS and the random effect model show that the impact of independent power producers, privatisation, restructuring, and deregulation on electricity prices is negative and significant, making both domestic and industrial consumers better off. However, the welfare effects of unbundling generation from transmission and distribution appear to be beneficial for residential end-users only. Our results also indicate that other reform indicators including third-party access and the existence of independent regulatory agencies may not be the right choice for a reduction in electricity prices, given the absence of a requisite conducive environment for regulations in our sample countries. Thus, the inconsistent behaviour of different regulatory reforms towards different countries and regions of the world needs to be considered in the policy formulation of the power sector. We also note that the results can be magnified in terms of significance with the exclusion of some outlier observations in the data.

Publication Link:

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0301421519301752?dgcid=author#!