This study estimates the benefits of beach quality improvements, using travel costs as an implicit and entrance fee as an explicit payment vehicle in two otherwise identical labelled discrete choice site selection models. Including entrance fee as an explicit payment vehicle in addition to implicit travel costs is expected to affect beach visitors' preferences and willingness to pay (WTP) since travel costs only are not expected to measure maximum WTP. Convergent validity of preference parameters and WTP derived from the two identical discrete choice experiments (DCEs) is tested using a split-sample approach and specifying a mixed logit choice model. Both preferences and scale parameters are significantly different between the two samples. As expected, mean WTP values are higher when an explicit entrance fee is included in the DCE. Our results suggest that implicit payment vehicles in choice experiments underestimate welfare changes. Beach visitors' positive WTP holds promise for the introduction of economic instruments such as entrance fees to support the financial sustainability of improved beach management.

This paper investigates various factors affecting crop cultivation both in negative and positive ways in the Sindh province of Pakistan. To undertake our analysis, we conducted face-to-face face interviews with farmers using a pre-tested questionnaire and both judgment and simple random sampling methods in the two districts, namely Hyderabad and Matiari, of Sindh province. Our multiple linear regression results capture the influence of various factors; including farmers’ characteristics (e.g. their age, education, and tenancy) and crop diversification (or crop varieties) in addition to main agricultural constraints, such as water scarcity, barren and salinized land, lack of financial resources, discouraging crop cultivation in the province. In the light of our results, we proposed several suggestions for the decision-makers involved in agricultural policymaking, specifically in the Sindh province of Pakistan.

This paper investigates and analyses various push and pull factors affecting Pakistani female doctoral students to pursue international higher education in Malaysia. The study implemented an open-ended interview approach to collect qualitative data and analysed it using a constant comparative analysis originally developed from Grounded Theory (GT) methodology. The study findings discovered affordability as a major push factor besides other relevant but not less important push factors, such as scholarship conditions to choose Malaysia as a country of destination because of its affordable tuition fees and living expenses. In contrast, this study also identified the principal pull factor that makes Malaysia as a preferred Muslim country for Pakistani women seeking higher education. Other general pull factors, including cultural diversity, lifestyle, security of women and freedom of women, were also found as significantly important as the remaining individual pull factors, such as personal comparison made between Pakistani and Malaysian higher education, students’ previous international experience and family bond. Based on these findings, some lessons are learned and discussed in the details for internationalizing our higher education system in Pakistan in the future.

This paper explores the complex nuances and experiences of international female doctoral students when they are in the ‘settling-in phase’ to their new (host) country of higher education. When coming to Malaysia as international students, they experience feelings of being outside of their country of origin. Being physically away from their loved ones, they constantly feel stress, loneliness and homesickness. To overcome these challenges, it is especially important for the international students to surmount their first few months in the host country's communities. To achieve these results, the study employs a qualitative methodology underpinned by symbolic interactionism to elicit the true significance of these Pakistani female doctoral students’ social interactions with the host country’s community. Based on our findings, we established that female doctoral students involve themselves in a variety of coping strategies keeping in view the new environment of a host country and their adjustment to it, such as binge-watching, social network sharing, faith-based activities, going to the gym, routine management and travel and outing