Motivations for an organisation within a developing country to report social responsibility information : evidence from Bangladesh

Purpose – The aim of the paper is to describe and explain, using a combination of interviews and content analysis, the social and environmental reporting practices of a major garment export organisation within a developing country. Design/methodology/approach – Senior executives from a major organisation in Bangladesh are interviewed to determine the pressures being exerted on them in terms of their social and environmental performance. The perceptions of pressures are then used to explain – via content analysis – changing social and environmental disclosure practices. Findings – The results show that particular stakeholder groups have, since the early 1990s, placed pressure on the Bangladeshi clothing industry in terms of its social performance. This pressure, which is also directly related to the expectations of the global community, in turn drives the industry's social policies and related disclosure practices. Research limitations/implications – The findings show that, within the context of a developing country, unless we consider the managers' perceptions about the social and environmental expectations being imposed upon them by powerful stakeholder groups then we will be unable to understand organisational disclosure practices. Originality/value – This paper is the first known paper to interview managers from a large organisation in a developing country about changing stakeholder expectations and then link these changing expectations to annual report disclosures across an extended period of analysis

Devaluation and income inequality: Evidence from Pakistan

The paper examines the impact of nominal devaluation on income distribution in Pakistan. In the empirical model we include economic growth, measured per capita; trade-openness; foreign direct investment (FDI); unemployment and inflation rates which appear well justified in the particular context of the economy of Pakistan. The Auto Regressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) bounds testing approach to cointegration has been employed for the long run relation; and the Vector Error Correction Model (VECM) for the short run dynamics. We also test the Kuznets inverted-U relation between income inequality and economic growth. We find long run relationship among the series; and that nominal devaluation worsens income inequality. Though economic growth appears to deteriorate income distribution, the non-linear link between the variables depicts Kuznets’ (1955) type inverted-U relationship. This is reassuring for Pakistan in the long run. We also find FDI and trade-openness worsens income distribution. Inflation lowers income inequality but unemployment aggravates it in Pakistan.Devaluation, Income Inequality, EKC, ARDL

Financial development and income inequality in Pakistan: An application of ARDL approach

The paper examines the relationship between financial development and income inequality; and also explores if the Greenwood and Jovianvich (GJ) hypothesis applies to Pakistan. Using data from 1971 to 2005, the paper implements the Auto Regressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) bounds testing approach to cointegration to examine the existence of long run; and the error correction model (ECM) for the short run relationships. Stationarity properties of the series are checked by the ADF method. The findings indicate that financial development reduces income inequality while financial instability aggravates it. Contrary to the conventional wisdom, we find economic growth worsens income distribution and that the latter is deteriorated further by trade openness. The paper does not find support for the GJ relation. Appropriate reforms aimed at developing a well-organized financial sector in Pakistan can help reduce income inequality.Financial Development, Income Inequality

Optimal Resource Allocation and Relay Selection in Bandwidth Exchange Based Cooperative Forwarding

In this paper, we investigate joint optimal relay selection and resource allocation under bandwidth exchange (BE) enabled incentivized cooperative forwarding in wireless networks. We consider an autonomous network where N nodes transmit data in the uplink to an access point (AP) / base station (BS). We consider the scenario where each node gets an initial amount (equal, optimal based on direct path or arbitrary) of bandwidth, and uses this bandwidth as a flexible incentive for two hop relaying. We focus on alpha-fair network utility maximization (NUM) and outage reduction in this environment. Our contribution is two-fold. First, we propose an incentivized forwarding based resource allocation algorithm which maximizes the global utility while preserving the initial utility of each cooperative node. Second, defining the link weight of each relay pair as the utility gain due to cooperation (over noncooperation), we show that the optimal relay selection in alpha-fair NUM reduces to the maximum weighted matching (MWM) problem in a non-bipartite graph. Numerical results show that the proposed algorithms provide 20- 25% gain in spectral efficiency and 90-98% reduction in outage probability.Comment: 8 pages, 7 figure

Real Exchange Rate Changes and Trade Balance in Pakistan: A Revisit

This study uses quarterly data from 1980.1 to 2006.4 to explore the relationship between changes in real exchange rate and the trade balance indicators of Pakistan. Applying Auto Regressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) approach to cointegration we examine the existence of a possible long run relationship. We find the following: (a) a long run relationship between the series exists; and b) the coefficient of elasticity is negative and statistically significant which does not support for the J-relation. Given this, the policymakers should take conservative approach in using currency devaluation to cure the fundamental disequilibrium in the balance of payments. It is likely that such policy may not produce the desired outcome—i.e., the trade balance may not improve.Real Exchange Rate Changes, Trade Balance

Financial development and energy consumption nexus in Malaysia: A multivariate time series analysis

Despite a bourgeoning literature on the existence of a long-run relationship between energy consumption and economic growth, the findings have failed to establish clearly the direction of causation. A growing economy needs more energy, which is exacerbated by growing population. Evidence suggests that financial development can reduce overall energy consumption by achieving energy efficiency. Economic growth and energy consumption in Malaysia have been rising in tandem over the past several years. The three public policy objectives of Malaysia are: economic progress, population growth and financial development. It is of interest to the policymakers to understand the dynamic interrelation among the stated objectives. The paper implements Auto Regressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) approach to cointegration to examine the existence of a long-run relationship among the series: energy consumption, population, aggregate production, and financial development for Malaysia; and tests for Granger causality within the Vector Error Correction Model (VECM). The results suggest that energy consumption is influenced by economic growth and financial development, both in the short and the long-run, but the population-energy relation holds only in the long run. The findings have important policy implications for balancing economic growth vis-à-vis energy consumption for Malaysia, as well as other emerging nations.Financial development; Energy consumption; ARDL; Economic growth

Stocks as Hedge against Inflation in Pakistan: Evidence from ARDL Approach

The paper implements ARDL bounds testing approach to cointegration to explore whether or not stocks are good hedge against inflation in the case of a transition economy such as Pakistan, using annual data for the period 1971 – 2008. Ng-Peron (2001) unit root test is applied to determine the stationarity of the series. The results suggest that stocks act as good hedge against inflation in Pakistan both in the long and the short run. The findings should help formulate appropriate policy to encourage investment in financial markets and thereby promote economic growth.Stock Returns, Inflation, ARDL Bounds Testing, Ng-Perron Test