Explore publications.

The stock market is a common feature of a current economy and it is reputed to achieve some necessary functions, which promote the growth and development of the economy. To achieve this objective, the endogenous growth literature and research, and recent theoretical studies have tried to provide a link between the literature of endogenous growth theory and financial markets. Providing evidence of stock market development will assist policy makers in designing reforms that do indeed promote the growth rate, enhancing stock market development as economic growth through to the banking system of financial sectors, and to the degree of investor’s right; furthermore, allowing risk sharing encourages speculative and productive investment (see, e.g. Greenwood and Jovanovic (1990) and Bencivenga and Smith (1991)). The results of the previous study, which established positive links between the stock market and economic growth, suggests the pursuit of policies geared towards rapid development of the stock market.

The paper employed a two-stage Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) approach to examine the sources of technical efficiency in the Nigerian banking sub-sector. Using a cross section of commercial and merchant banks, the study showed that the Nigerian banking industry was not efficient both in the pre-and-post-liberalization era. The study further revealed that market share was the strongest determinant of technical efficiency in the Nigerian banking Industry. Thus, appropriate macroeconomic policy, institutional development and structural reforms must accompany financial liberalization to create the stable environment required for it to succeed. Hence, the present bank consolidation and reforms by the Central Bank of Nigeria, which started with Soludo and continued with Sanusi, are considered necessary, especially in the areas of e banking and reorganizing the management of banks.

This study examines bank competition in the loan markets in India using a new competitiveness index, the Augmented Relative Profit Difference (ARPD). The ARPD quantifies the impact of marginal costs on performance, measured in terms of market shares. The theoretical foundation of the ARPD is robust when compared to other conventional measures. Applying this unbiased competition indicator to loan markets shows that financial reform has contributed to significant improvements in competition. Public sector banks and private sector banks are more competitive than foreign banks too. In addition, we find that the Indian loanmarkets are monopolistic in nature.

This article reflects on social welfare system and governance of housing markets from an end-user perspective. The article criticallyanalyses the way in which social welfare has correlated to unsustainable development and created self entitlement behaviours andattitudes in the South African low income housing market. The phenomenon was demonstrable by empirical research whosefindings confirmed an existence of an association between a fully subsidized social housing model (as underpinned by South Africa’s social welfare) and propensity to default on mortgages. The study found that the risk of default by homeowners in the low income housing market in South Africa is influenced by government’s housing grant model. In other words, the research established that the principle of servicing a mortgaged starter property (that is almost similar to a government free house by both structure and design) is not universally accepted by homeowners of these mortgaged houses. The unintended consequences are that the system has created indefinite expectations that potentially could; (i) erode the country’s balance sheet; (ii) add to non-payment behaviour; (iii) pressurize the economic and credit systems; (iv) propagate entitlement attitudes and mindsets; (v) create social instability and (v) widened the country’s balance of payment deficits.

In recent years the financial markets known a rapid development and become more and more complex. So, many regulatory requirements, focused on banks as well as insurance sector, have been developed. These regulatory are concentrated essentially on business risk control and required capital to cover risks. These requirements have influenced the asset allocation issue in insurance industry. These requirements have influenced the asset allocation issue in insurance industry. This section is interested by this issue. In first time it highlights some research works in this issue. Then we will investigate the relation between Solvency and optimal asset allocation. Finally we will explore the principal used methods in modeling asset and in choosing the optimal portfolio composition.

This study is about foreign exchange reserves of Bangladesh. The main purpose of this study is to the influence of exchange rateson foreign exchange reserves to the Bangladesh context. Both the primary and secondary data has been used in this study. The primary data has been collected through a structured questionnaire from 50 respondents. The secondary data, namely Bangladesh foreign exchange reserves (FER), Bangladesh current account balance (CAB), Bangladesh capital and financial account balance (CFAB), and BDT/USD exchange rates (ER). This study covers yearly data from July 01, 1996 to June 30, 2005 and quarterly data from July 01, 2005 to June 30, 2012. Findings of this study shows that out of the selected 16 factors affecting foreign exchange reserves, exchange rates occupy the first position, weighted average score (WAS) being 4.56. Foreign exchange reserves (FER) and current account balance (CAB) have increased by 502.9087% and 1451.218%, whereas capital and financial account (CFAB) has decreased by -649.024% on June 30, 2012 compared to June 30, 1997. The influence of other factors held constant, as ER changes by 285.6894 units due to one unit change in FER, on average in the same direction which represents that ER has positive effect on the FER and this relationship is statistically significant. 62.1526 percent of the variation in FER is explained by ER. The outcomes of Breusch-Godfrey test (LM test), ARCH test, and the Normality test are that there is a serial correlation among residuals, the variance of residuals is not constant, and the residuals are not normally distributed.


 
 
 Academic engagement used to refer to the extent to which students identify with and value schooling outcomes, and participate in academic and non-academic school activities. This study aims to investigate the academic engagement and satisfaction from the school among the university students. The data is taken from the undergraduate students in School of Transportation & Logistics in Istanbul University. We used a questionnaire that consisted of two parts. First part of the questionnaire is about to measure the students’ academic engagement that is improved by Schaufeli et al. Second part of the questionnaire is about to measure the students’ satisfaction from the school. K-means cluster analysis is used to determine two groups of students, group the students in to two clusters based on their school satisfaction scores. We named these two groups as “satisfied” and “unsatisfied” students. Secondly we investigate the relationships between the satisfaction scores and the academic engagement. By means of T Test we investigate whether the academic engagement differs between the clusters that are determined according to the students’ satisfaction scores. Finally we found that academic engagement differs according to the identified clusters.
 
 

The study aims to examine the effects of oil price and exchange rate on unemployment in Malaysia. The empirical analysis commence by analyzing the time series property of data. The Johansen VAR-based co-integration technique was applied to examine the long run relationship between exchange rate, oil price and unemployment and found the long run relationship does exist. The vector error correction model was performed to check the short run dynamics and found that the short run dynamics are influenced by the estimated long run equilibrium. Granger causality was done and found that oil price does not affect unemployment but exchange rate has an influence on unemployment. Therefore, putting the exchange rate under control should be implemented to control unemployment.


 
 
 The last several years have seen an increase in the number of direct to consumer advertisements by pharmaceutical companies. Direct to Consumer advertisements (DTC) means targeting the end consumer through advertisements on television, radio, in newspapers, magazines, and the Internet. The qualitative study presents data and supports the need for a future quantitative study to ask physicians and consumers their opinions on whether pharmaceutical companies should be allowed to advertise directly to the end consumer. This article reviews the literature on this controversial topic, supporting the need to explore the reserach questions in greater detail. A review of the literature suggests there is financial motivation on the part of the pharmaceutical companies to increase their sales by advertsing directly to the end consumer as opposed to performing an educational service to the consumer.
 
 


 
 
 This study aims to investigate the impact of determinants of shift work on job satisfaction in service sector organizations of Pakistan. History reveals that the invention of Thomas Edison brought the change in working environment and industrial revolution results in the birth of shift works. A great number of theories in Management are there to define Job satisfaction. All of them show the relationship between ability to perform and the productivity. In order to investigate their impact descriptive study is taken in to account in which survey research method is used to collect data. On the basis of quantitative analysis this study reveals that determinants of shift work has positive impact on job satisfaction. Finally recommendations are made to increase shift work in service sector organizations of Pakistan so that people may upraise their standards of living.
 
 


 
 
 The purpose of this article is that discuss the reasons of European debt crisis. Every European country adopts austerity policy, which cannot solve government debt problems and further lead to economic exacerbation and continuous recession, based on the neoclassical economic theory. In order to realize the root of European debt crisis, this article adopts the reaseach method of fiscal sociology. In this study, we think that the government debt problem is the result of economic profits conflict based on the Fiscal Sociology. The economic profits conflict of investment, consumption, international business and labor market will have influence on the government’s revenue and expenditure. Furthermore, the root of the European debt crisis is the uneven income distribution by financialization and neoliberalism.
 
 

Although Turkey has historically concentrated its trade with the European Union (EU) it has diversified its trade markets with the neighbouring regions and different group of countries during the last decade. Among them, Arab countries have come into prominence. Especially, following the “zero problems with neighbours” policy (ZPN), pursued by Turkey since 2002, the trade volume with the Middle Eastern neighbours has increased faster than that with its traditional partners. Nevertheless so called “Arab Spring” has started to manifest its effects on this trend. It deteriorates not only the economies of the concerned countries but also Turkey’s trade expansion. This paper aims: (i) to test through a gravity model the positive impacts of the ZPN policy and the negative impact of the Arab Spring on the trade expansion with the Spring Countries; and (ii) to reveal the positive impact of the policy change and the negative impact of the uprising movements on the realization of trade potential by Turkey in the Spring Countries.

he aims of the study at using AHP (Analytic Hierarchy Process) are two-fold. First, the study aims to determine the relative importance or weight of multiple criteria and its attributes in the decision problem of location selection. The second aim of the study is to identify a location with the highest potential among alternatives for retailers by using a series of criteria and attributes determined. By the means of the AHP method, decision makers put weighted values to the evaluation criteria with respect to the related goal and the attributes with respect to the corresponding criteria. In addition, the priority weight for every location alternative on each criterion and attribute is estimated. The AHP process involves hierarchically structuring decision problem, setting priority weights, establishing a judgment matrix and weight vector, and then ranking the order of location alternatives. To substantiate the feasibility of this standard approach, a case study is conducted with location selection for a clothing store in this study.

A number of authors suggested that the impact of the macroeconomic factors on the incidence of the financial distress, and afterward in case of failure of companies. However, macroeconomic factors rarely, if ever, appear as variables in predictive models that seek to identify distress and failure; modellers generally suggest that the impact of macroeconomic factors has already been taken into account by financial ratio variables. This article presents a systematic study of this domain, by examining the link between the failure of companies and macroeconomic factors for the French companies to identify the most important variables and to estimate their utility in a predictive context. The results of the study suggest that several macroeconomic variables are strictly associated to the failure, and have a predictive value by specifying the relation between the financial distress and the failure.

The purpose of this study is to present a case for the need for audit committee in Constituency Development Fund to promote corporate governance and accountability in constituency development fund management in Nairobi Province, Kenya. The study provides an analysis and critique of the extent of engagement research in the field of corporate governance and accountability in constituency Development Fund management and present case for further research that may be directed to outside Nairobi province. The study found that the extent of literature in the field of corporate governance and accountability and reporting in contrast to the field to management CDF in Nairobi had largely ignored the practice within CDF organizations. The study arguesthat CDF can benefit from the methodological and theoretical insights of audit committee and other disciplines. The study suggests where further contributions might be made by future research endeavors engaging with audit committees with organizations. Engaging audit committee in CDF governance and accountability has the potential to improve theorizing practice and the sustainability performance with organizations. Drawing on the methods and theories of other disciplines and the papers in the special issues (of audit committee) the study presents away forward for researchers engaging with audit committees in organizational practicing corporate governance and accountability.

The paper employs various measures of law enforcement to provide new evidence on the importance of legal institutions for different dimensions of financial development in transition economies. It offers a critical assessment of law enforcement measures employed in recent studies by showing that some proxies for law enforcement in the credit market may not be appropriate. Hence, care should be taken in how the quality of institutions is measured and the context which it represents. An original approach to measuring law enforcement in the credit market is developed by embodying the legal theory of dispute resolution and assessing this approach by collecting primary data for Kosovo. The findings suggest that Kosovo compares well with countries in the region andother transition economies in terms of the enforcement of creditor rights.

This study investigates the environmental conservation costs of the local authorities in Kenya by analyzing the data collected from 90 of these local authorities. The population of the study is the 175 local authorities in Kenya. A sample of 90 local authorities has been used. Both statistical package for social sciences (SPSS) version 17 and Excel have been used to determine the level of environmental conservation costs in the studied local authorities. The results indicated that there was a wide use of environmental conservation costs among the local authorities. The study provides preliminary evidence on environmental conservation costs used by local authorities in Kenya. Further research is suggested to explore the possible motivating factors among different local authorities’ degree of application and level of environmental costs in different activities.

The perceptions of Islamic banking professionals are surveyed through a questionnaire to explore whether the process of risk management mediates board involvement in risk management and risk management practices of Islamic banks in Malaysia and Egypt. The findings of this study identified that the Islamic banks in the selected countries are somewhat efficient in their risk management process. It was noticed that board involvement in risk management, process of risk management and risk management among Islamic banks in Malaysia are significantly higher than their counterparts in Egypt. Furthermore, high involvement of boards in risk management significantly increases the risk management process, and in turn, leads to significantly higher riskmanagement practices in Islamic banks. Hence, boards should take formal responsibility for setting, managing and periodically assessing the risk management culture of the banks. It is expected that the outcomes of this study would help policy setters in the selected countries to develop a well-structured and harmonized risk management process that enhance risk management practices, with emphasis on the effective involvements of the board of directors and Shari’ah supervisory boards in risk management practices.

The aim of this study to examine the performance of Support Vector Regression (SVR) which is a novel regression method based on Support Vector Machines (SVM) approach in predicting the Istanbul Stock Exchange (ISE) National 100 Index daily returns. For bechmarking, results given by SVR were compared to those given by classical Linear Regression (LR). Dataset contains 6 technical indicators which were selected as model inputs for 2005-2011 period. Grid search and cross valiadation is used for finding optimal model parameters and evaluating the models. Comparisons were made based on Root Mean Square (RMSE), Mean Absolute Error (MAE), Mean Absolute Percentage Error (MAPE), Theil Inequality Coefficient (TIC) and Mean Mixed Error (MME) metrics. Results indicate that SVR outperforms the LR for all metrics.

Equity is one of the basic principles of health systems and features explicitly in the Nigerian health financing policy. Despiteacclaimed commitment to the implementation of this policy through various pro-poor health programmes and interventions,the level of inequity in health status and access to basic health care interventions remain high. This paper examines theequity of health care expenditure by individuals in Nigeria. The paper evaluated equity in out-of-pocket spending (OOP) forthe country and separately for the six geopolitical zones of the country. The methodological framework rests on KakwaniProgressivity Indices (KPIs), Reynold-Smolensky indices and concentration indices (CIs) using data from the 2004 Nigerian National Living Standard Survey (NLSS) collected by the National Bureau of Statistic. The results reveal that health financing is regressive with the incidence disproportionately resting on poor households with about 70% of the total expenditure on health being financed through out-of-pocket payments by households. Poor households are prone to bear most of the expenses in the event of any health shock. The catastrophic consequences thus push some into poverty, and aggravate the poverty of others. The paper therefore suggests that the country’s health financing systems must be such that allows people to access services when they are needed, but must also protect household, from financial catastrophe, by reducing OOP spending through risk pooling and prepayment schemes within the health system.