No abstract

This study empirically analyzes the financial and economic development in Pakistan with reference to banking sector. Time series data of Pakistani banks from 1980 to 2012 have been employed. Statistical analysis including Augmented Dickey-Fuller, Johansen cointegration, ordinary least square (OLS) regression, and Granger causality tests have been applied on the data relating four indicators (i.e. Broad Money (M 2 ); Domestic Credit to Private Sector; Domestic Credit to by Banking Sector; and Banks Deposit Liabilities (BDL) -all taken as percentage of gross domestic product] which measured the level of financial development (FD) contributed by banking sector. The results revealed that a positive and statistically significant relationship exists between FD and economic growth. However, BDL are positive but statistically insignificant, and M 2 is negative and statistically insignificant. Moreover, unidirectional and bidirectional causality have been found between the variables. Hence, there is a dire need of sound banking sector to ensure long-term sustainable economic growth that could be achieved if the Government takes concrete measures to reduce all kinds of deficits and borrowings that are the major causes of crowding-out private investment.

This research intends to explore the presence of the “turn-of-the-month-effect (TOME)” in the Pakistani stock market. The TOME is the temporary increase in prices of registered shares on the last operating day of the month and the initial 3–4 days of the following month. The selection incorporates the secondary data, which comprises the ending prices of the “KSE-100 Index” for 2013–2018. Contrary to the previous evidence in Pakistan, we run an in-depth year-wise analysis and report an interesting fact that the TOME is significant only during 2013–2016, while it vanishes for 2017 and 2018. We suggest that the “turn-of-the-month” anomaly may disappear during stock market crisis times. The research contains significant importance for potential shareholders because a rational shareholder considers several measures while making his investment decisions and constructing hedging strategies.

A conceptual model has been developed to present comprehensively the processes and linkages of invention and open innovation for those knowledge workers who want to transform idea of a new product or service into a reality. The progression of idea conceptualization, realization and marketing is further divided into two phases; first is invention and second is open innovation. These phases are integrated into a complex framework representing a comprehensive flowchart which provides a snapshot of gradual transition of invention processes into open innovation processes. The conceptual model rests on existing literature that methodologically connects access to finance, funding constraints, cognitive and social dimensions, skills, mental model, conceptual knowledge and knowledge production capacity of the scientists (i.e., knowledge worker), scope and pioneering of the invention, technological infrastructure, collaboration with private firms and universities and utilization of digital technologies. The invention, as well as open innovation activities, are discussed with respect to World Intellectual Property Organization and Global Innovation Index country rankings and the number of patents filed and granted to the world including Pakistan. The framework is a rigorous but rewarding process for a knowledge worker who designs and develops a new product, process, procedure, mechanism and methodology to serve humanity and the marketplace.

The foreign exchange rate fluctuations do create an impact on stock returns, which has been investigated for non-financial listed Pakistani firms. The real effective exchange rate has been used as the true measure of foreign exchange exposure. The modelled econometric equation includes; firm size, firm liquidity, money supply and inflation as predictors of stock returns. Twenty-five non-financial listed firms have been evaluated for the study period 2004 to 2013, which signifies the military regime era proceeded by peoples party rule in Pakistan. Financial data analysis, including; ADF unit root and Johansen Co-integration tests, have been applied to evaluate financial data, which further led to correlation, descriptive stats and panel data regression analysis. The results have suggested a very weak relationship between stock returns and foreign exchange exposure. Therefore, sample non-financial listed firms have not been foreign exchange exposed; however, firm size, liquidity, money supply and inflation rates have definitely created an impact on stock returns.