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Item Demographic Structure and Inflation(UMT, Lahore, 2018-10-22) Aqeel AhmedItem Globalization, Institutions, Technology and Conflict(UMT, Lahore, 2019-11-22) Muhammad ShabeerSustainable development goals are the aims set by the UN for member countries to achieve till 2030. Out of seventeen goals, one important goal is to achieve income equality with in societies and across the world. Statistics show that equality among member countries has increased but equality within countries is still a challenge. There is a need to identify the factors that can reduce income inequality within countries. This study initially took 92 countries whose GINI index was higher than 0.30 and later classify them into four income groups to assess the separate effect of globalization, institution, technology, conflicts, financial developments and human developments on income inequality in these cross sections. Time period is taken from 2001 to 2017 to make a panel of 92 countries and 17 years. Five models are constructed, one for all sample countries and other four for four types of countries on the basis of the World Bank income classification. Feasible generalized least square (FGLS -hetero) approach is used for estimation. This study indicates that globalization, institutions, technology, financial development, human capital development have different impacts on income inequality in different types of countries.Item Disaggregated GDP and Carbon Emissions – Testing Nonlinearity for Selected HDR Listed Countries(UMT, Lahore, 2019) Mubasher IqbalThe environmental deteriorating problem is worldwide; in this regard economic activities are to blame. This situation of environmental degradation can be more communicated with the help of Environmental Kuznets Curve (EKC). This idea of EKC presents, at the initial phase of economic activities caused to create environmental problem but after a specific level it become mature and turn into environment friendly. This study aims to explore the existence of EKC, with respect to three categories; industrial, agricultural and services. Not only this control variables like urbanization, population density, forests square area and globalization also regressed to formulate the suitable policies to protect the environment. For this purpose the sample is selected on the basis of Human Development Index (HDI). The basic statistical techniques like descriptive statistics, correlation and unit root test are used to express the features of data. For the sake of regression analysis Feasible Generalized Least square (FGLS) method is used as estimation technique. So, the estimated results are confirming the existence of all three types of EKCs in selected HDR countries moreover the control variables are also caused to affect the environment and caused to increase carbon dioxide emissions.Item REDEFINING THE DETERMINANTS OF VIOLENT AND NONVIOLENT CRIMES(UMT, Lahore, 2019) Naureen IqbalThe fluctuation in crime rate (both violent & non-violent) in any country is a significant factor in that country’s economy. Determining the variables affecting the rate of crime is a critical component for any country. There have been numerous research studies on the determinants of violent & non-violent crimes in many countries including Pakistan to help evaluate the factors that may impact the rate of crime. The purpose of this study was to examine the contributing factors to crime rate in Pakistan. The two main types of crimes were further divided into sub categories. Numerous data sources were used to acquire relevant data including WDI & SWIID. The data was taken for the years of 1984 to 2016. Time series data for Pakistan was explored for this research work. The data was analyzed using the NG-Perron Unit Root test informing the mixed order of integration. ARDL was then utilized to determine the short-term and long-term results for the data. The results of the analysis indicated that the variables of interest (tax reform, development expenditure & corruption) showed significance in all models for violent & non violent crimes. Overall the findings of the study suggested that the variables especially Tax reforms, development expenditure and corruption studied in this research highly impact the crime rate in PakistanItem Growth returns of different Government Expenditures(UMT, Lahore, 2019) Manal Sharif BajwaThis research study is carried out to examine the role of different types of government expenditure related interventions on the social development of Pakistan. We found out the linkages between the incidence of several types of government spending and its effect on social progress in Pakistan. Time series data has been used from 1980 – 2016, and explored the optimal level of government expenditures on social progress. Moreover, the types of government expenditures used are water, population planning, education, health, low-cost housing, rural development, subsidies, agriculture and social security and welfare. The findings this study has proposed will help the Pakistani policymakers to formulate policies in order to increase efficiency in term of increasing social progress.Item The Impact of the External debt on Standard of Living(UMT, Lahore, 2019)Item An Analysis of the Impact of Burden of Debt, Depreciation of Exchange Rate, Foreign Remittances and Institutional Quality on Distribution of Income(UMT, Lahore, 2019-11-22) Israr HussainDue to economic crises in Pakistan, there is no doubt that the debt has an adverse impact on the lives of the poor and has become one of the major causes of an increase perhaps misery over time. The present research attempts to explore the effects of debt services on the distribution of income in Pakistan analyzed from 1984 to 2018 with time-series information. It considered that currency devaluation in developing countries is a risk for income distribution. The previous analysis provides evidence of a positive effect of foreign remittances in developing countries. The Autoregressive Distributed Lags (ARDL) method used to examine the impact of debt on income distribution. The findings indicate the significant & positive relationship between service of debt and GINI coefficient, which shows that a rise in debt will lead to a widening of the income distribution.Item Examining the Impact of Remittances on Poverty and Household Consumption Expenditures in SAARC(UMT, Lahore, 2019) Atif ShakeelIn the 21st century one of the most significant factors contributing to build economic relations between developed and developing countries is international remittances (Richard, 2005). In 2010 international migrants comprise of 2.8 percent of global population and currently it has reached to 3.5 percent of global population. The World Bank (2015) reported US$ 601 billion of remittances across the world, out of the total remittances, 73.4 percent had flown to the developing countries.Item Trade Deficit in Selected SAARC Economies(UMT, Lahore, 2019-03-29) Muhammad Ahsan RabbiThis study is conducted to describe the trade deficit in five selected SAARC economies which are Bangladesh, India, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri-Lanka. In the proposed mode, four major macro-economic indicators are used which are real effective exchange rate, money supply, total consumption and urbanization.Item Determinants of Money Laundering(UMT, Lahore, 2019-01-29) Wajiha SamreenThe primary objective of this research is to examine the determinants of money laundering for developing countries and to identify significance of governance institutions in curbing money laundering. The statistical methods of OLS and FGLS have been used to estimate how much governance indicators (political stability, control of corruption) and economic indicators (Foreign Direct Investment, Official Development Assistance, GDP growth rate and Inflation) determine the level of money laundering in 127 developing countries from the years 2004 to 2013. It has been found out that by one percent increase in political stability and control of corruption, the level of money laundering can be reduced by 36.4 million dollars and 1 million dollars accordingly. Based on the findings, the key policy recommendations to reduce the level of illicit financial outflows are also examined in this research.Item THE DETERMINANTS OF GENDER INEQUALITY IN ASIAN COUNTRIES(UMT, Lahore, 2019-05-30) Hafsa QaiserThis study tries to investigate the determinants of the gender inequality. This study examines the impact of governance on gender gap. This study is based on Asian countries, and panel data estimation tested through the FGLS method which allows the estimate in the presence of Heteroscedasticity and Autocorrelated problems and the time period started starting from 2006 to 2017. Data for all variables are extracted from different sites such as world development indicators, global gender gap reports, polity IV project, world-wide governance indicators, and human development reports. This study calculated female unemployment and governance have a negative impact on the gender gap in Asian countries. Asian countries governments are more corrupt than other developed countries and they are not providing effective policies to the people which help to control gender inequality. They should improve their policies and provide equal rights to women in each field that will help in decreasing the gender gap, and also if women's will contributing in each field as men are contributing Asian countries can improve their economy easily.Item Impact of Globalization on Social Development(UMT, Lahore, 2019) Bakhtawar IjazThe focus of current study is to understand the influence of globalization on social development in 8 South Asian countries for the period 1980–2016. The globalization can be classified into economic, political and social globalization. This paper decides the variables that show the impact of globalization on social development. Eight critical independent variables are chosen which includes Gross fixed capital formation, Labor force, Development expenditure, while the proxies of globalization are Culture globalization, financial globalization, Information globalization, Interpersonal globalization and trade globalization. The dependent variable is social development proxied using life expectancy. To compute the relationship among social development and globalization, panel data method is employed respectively. The findings of this study suggest that gross fixed capital formation, culture globalization, financial globalization, information globalization and interpersonal globalization affect the life expectancy positively. But labor force, development expenditure and trade globalization influence the life expectancy negatively but insignificant. According to the research findings, several recommendations are given for the improvement of life expectancy through globalization.Item The Role of Economics and Governance in making Asian people happy(UMT, Lahore, 2019) Arslan Arif UppalThis paper examines factors that affect happiness using panel data 36 Asian countries focusing on macroeconomic variables and governance variables during 2008-2017. Data of all variables are collected from WDI (World Development Indicators database). This paper use FGLS model for estimation between happiness index and macroeconomic variables and governance variables. The results showed that good governance money, health, and employment creates a higher level of happiness. Our findings shows that positive impact on happiness due to positive and significant relation between life expectancy, money supply and government expenditure on education with all governance variables. In case of unemployment and inequality they have negative and significant relation with all governance variables that’s why they negatively affect happiness. Trade openness has mixed results in term of the effect on happiness.Item Investigating Factors behind Variations in Budget Deficit(UMT, Lahore, 2019-08-30) Sundas MahmoodFiscal imbalances are one of the major economic concerns for both developed and developing countries. However, these imbalances are prevalent with a higher intensity in the developing economies which are facing deficits as a key challenge along with many other economic issues. This study takes into consideration seven variables of macroeconomic and administrative nature, in order to find out which factors majorly contribute to the variations in the budget deficits in case of 27 Asian countries covering the time period 2007-2017. The independent variables of the study include government spending, trade barriers, soundness of banks, domestic market size, public trust on politicians, government effectiveness and political stability. Feasible Generalized Least Square (FGLS) estimates show government spending and economic growth to be the most prominent factors leading to the betterment of budget balances. Trade barriers, government effectiveness and political stability show the expected relationship with the dependent variable. However, the variable soundness of banks in the first model, shows an unexpected positive and insignificant impact on budget deficits where deficits in the government budget increases with an increase in the soundness of banks, but in the second model, it shows the expected negative sign. The estimates for government effectiveness and political stability show that the increase in the effectiveness of government authorities and stable political environment in the countries can help overcome the problem of budget deficits in the set of selected countries. Moreover, public trust on politicians in the second model, obtained higher coefficient and relatively significant probability value indicting it to be helpful in improving the overall balances in the government budget.Item The Socio-Economic Determinants of Crime(UMT, Lahore, 2019) Sabrina KhanCrime has been one of the major problems of civilization from the beginning and its magnitude has increased over time. In order to estimate the factors which are majorly contributing to the variations in crime rate and business cost of crime, this study takes into consideration socio-economic variables from 28 Asian countries covering the time period 2007 to 2017. The study comprises of two models whose dependent variables are organized crime and business cost of crime with the same explanatory variables used for both models which are quality of education, regulatory quality, reliability of police services, labour market efficiency, population density and trade openness. The feasible generalized least square (FGLS) results demonstrate that quality of education, reliability of police services, labour market efficiency and trade openness have a significant impact on organized crime along with reducing it while regulatory quality does not have an impact on reducing the crime rate whereas increase in population density somehow decreases organized crime. The results further confirm the significance and negative relationship of quality of education, reliability of police services, labour market efficiency and trade openness with business cost of crime. Population density proves to be insignificant while increase in regulatory quality decreases business cost of crime.Item Factors Responsible for Gender Gap in selected South Asian Countries(UMT, Lahore, 2019) Madiha AslamGender Gap is one of the major economic concern of both developed and the developing countries. This study takes in to consideration of many variables such as economic, social and political in order to find out the factors which majorly contribute to the variations in Gender Gap, the data of gap index is taken from World Economic Forum (WEF) in case of 7 selected South Asian countries covering the time period 2006-2016. The independent variables of the study are financial inclusions, Globalization, cost of starting new business, measure of Democracy (Polity 4), Gross Domestic Product and female tertiary enrolment to Male tertiary enrolment ratio. The methodology adopted in this paper is Feasible Generalized Least Square (FGLS). Moreover the results show that Gross Domestic Product, financial inclusion, female tertiary enrolment to male tertiary enrolment ratio and the polity4 (measure of democracy) increases the Gender Gap Index.Item The Impact of Institutional Quality on Unemployment for the Selected South Asian Countries(UMT, Lahore, 2019) KANWAL FAYYAZThe main objective of the thesis is to empirically investigate the impact of institutional quality indicator (rule of law, control for corruption, government effectiveness, voice and accountability, regularity quality) on unemployment rate. The panel data runs from 1996-2017 for the Asian countries like India, Nepal, Pakistan and Bangladesh. We employ Pooled Mean Group (PMG) estimation for the analysis introduced by Pesaran, Shin and Smith (2001). According to the empirical findings, in the long run regularity quality is highly significant and has a negative impact on unemployment in the all the eight models which conclude that the role of the regularity quality in decreasing unemployment is more robust then the other proxies of institutional quality used in the thesis in case of selected Asian countries. Moreover, our results show that voice and accountability and government expenditure also decrease unemployment rate while control for corruption and rule of law enhance unemployment rate but both the proxies are statistically insignificant in model 8. In the short run, the −1 values for all the proposed models are statistically significant and entered with negative signs indicating that that if any macroeconomic shock hits in selected Asian countries then the eight proposed models have power to restore to long run equilibrium.Item The impact of Foreign Direct Investment on Income inequality in Pakistan(UMT, Lahore, 2019) Muhammad Luqman HussainThis study is an effort to sightsee the influence of foreign direct investment on income inequality in Pakistan. Time series data for the period from 1986 to 2015 is used. An econometric model is used in which income inequality is the dependent variable of the study measured by Gini coefficient, while the independent variables of the study areForeign Direct Investment (taken as a log of Billion Dollars in Current Prices), Gross Domestic Product GDP was used as a Proxy for Economic Growth in dollars, Exports in Billion Dollars, Trade as a percentage of GDP, Urban Population Growth as proxy for Urban Development. In first step of the analysis the unit root test is applied in order to check the trends of stationarity in the data then in the second step rank tests are applied and convergence of the model is tested. The results confirm that the model converges in the long run. In the last step Johansen co-integration test is applied to explore the model. According to the results it is found that the FDI has negative and statistically significant impact on income inequality, exports as percentage of GDP depict negative but insignificant relationship, GDP per capita and exports have positive and significant impact, while the urban development also depicts a positive and statistically significant relationship with the income inequality. The results concluded that apart from all development initiatives, there is a need to bridge the gap between the development activities and the poor class of the society. The government should place some better income distribution policies so that the economic benefits become more productive and inclusive. The study recommends an increase in FDI, increasing exports and reducing imports. The study also put a strain to increase the economic growth level but with improved distribution policies.