Mohammad Mafizur Rahman

The dynamic of financial development, imports, foreign direct investment and economic growth: cointegration and causality analysis in Pakistan

The article investigates the effect of financial development, imports and foreign direct investment (FDI) on economic growth in case of Pakistan over the period of 1990–2008 using quarterly data set. The Autoregressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) bounds testing approach is applied to examine the long-run relationship and the direction of causality is investigated using the Vector Error Correction Model (VECM) framework between the variables. Our findings confirm the existence of cointegration, showing long-run relation between financial development, imports, FDI and economic growth. Financial development, imports and FDI have a positive and significant effect on economic growth of the country. Causality analysis reveals a bidirectional relation among the variables but strong causality is also running from financial development, economic growth and FDI to real imports.

Child labor in Bangladesh: a critical appraisal of Harkin's Bill and the MOU-type schooling program

The article discusses child labor in Bangladesh, referring to Harkins Bill and the Memorandum of Understanding Type schooling programs. Bangladesh is considered to be one of the child-labor abundant countries. The Child Labor Survey, 1995-96 estimates that the number of children in the labor force is 6.58 million out of the 34.45 million children in the age group of 5-14 years. Harkins Bill concentrates on prohibition, rather than on regulation, and fails to take into account the situation of acute poverty that forces children to enter the labor force. That is why many developing countries opposed such global prohibition of child labor. These countries consider these initiatives to be a kind of disguised protectionism and claim that their children are being used to protect jobs in the developed countries. Naturally, the bill appeared as a great threat to the Bangladeshi garments industry. The U.S. and other foreign buyers declared that they would boycott this exportable item of Bangladesh as long as children below the minimum age for employment are being used by this industry.

The impact of childhood malnutrition on schooling: Evidence from Bangladesh

This paper examines the impact of childhood malnutrition on schooling performance in rural Bangladesh. The results reveal that malnourished children are less likely to enrol in school on time and achieve an age-appropriate grade by 26 percentage points and 31 percentage points, respectively. Other important determinants of schooling outcomes include infrastructure and education level of parents. One major contribution of this paper is the control for the endogeneity of malnutrition status, which otherwise might lead to bias estimates.

Exports, financial development and economic growth in Pakistan

Purpose – This paper aims to explore the relationship between exports, financial development and economic growth in case of Pakistan. Design/methodology/approach – The autoregressive distributed lag bounds testing approach to cointegration and error correction model are applied to test the long-run and short-run relationships, respectively. The direction of causality between the variables is investigated by the vector error correction model Granger causality test and robustness of causality analysis is tested by applying innovative accounting approach. Findings – The analysis confirms cointegration for the long-run relation between exports, economic growth and financial development in case of Pakistan. The results indicate that economic growth and financial development spur exports growth in Pakistan. The causality analysis reveals feedback hypothesis that exists between financial development and economic growth, financial development and exports, and, exports and economic growth. Originality/value – This...

Financial Development, International Trade, and Economic Growth in Australia: New Evidence From Multivariate Framework Analysis

This study investigates the relationship between financial development, international trade and economic growth for Australia over the period of 1965 to 2010. The autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) bounds testing approach to cointegration is applied to examine the long-run relationship among the series, whereas stationarity properties of the variables are tested by applying two structural break tests. Results confirm the long-run relationship among the variables. Financial development, international trade, and capital appear as the drivers of economic growth in short and long runs. The feedback effect exists between international trade and economic growth. Financial development Granger causes economic growth validating supply-side hypothesis.

Macro-economic and trade link models of SAARC countries: an investigation for regional trade expansion

The paper examines the macroeconomic structure of SAARC countries, i.e. Bangladesh, India, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka. It also explores the possibility of trade expansion among these countries by examining the macro-economic and regional trade link models based on time series data of 28 years. The study finds that there are inter-country differences in production and consumption patterns, investment behaviour, tax and non-tax structures in the SAARC countries. Hence, there is considerable scope for trade expansion among the SAARC countries. The study also confirms that aggregate regional consumption and regional GNP increase significantly with the increase of aggregate regional trade, and the consumption and income elasticities are 1.70 and 1.61 respectively. The study also exhibits that the GNP of Bangladesh, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka, with limited exceptions, are significantly increased with the increase of their exports to the region. So these countries would definitely benefit from the regional trade expansion. The same may be true for India if the smuggled trade is prevented or reduced, and true economic factors, keeping aside political conflicts, dominate for regional trade policy.

The Determinants of Bangladesh’s Imports: A Gravity Model Analysis Under Panel Data

This paper applies the generalized gravity model to analyze the Bangladesh’s import trade with its major trading partners using the panel data estimation technique. Our results show that Bangladesh’s imports are determined by the inflation rates, per capita income differentials and openness of the countries involved in trade. Also the country’s imports are found to be influenced to a great extent by the border between India and Bangladesh. The country specific effects show that the influence of neighbouring countries is more than that of distant countries on Bangladesh’s imports.

Impact of microfinance on household income and consumption in Bangladesh: empirical evidence from a quasi-experimental survey

ABSTRACT:Although the microfinance movement has developed rapidly in Bangladesh over the last three decades, there has been little research on the wider contributions of microfinance to the livelihood of its clients. Moreover, there is no consensus in the microfinance literature that has attempted to control for selection bias. Therefore, to fill up this gap in the literature, this study examines the impacts of microfinance on income and consumption of households in Bangladesh that ultimately lead to poverty reduction. The main objective of this paper is to examine the effects of microfinance on the economic welfare of member households using a quasi-experimental survey pioneered by Coleman (1999). The data were collected across 20 villages in four districts of Bangladesh using quasi-experimental survey approach. The sample was designed so that member households of microfinance programs were compared with non-member households of similar characteristics. In the survey, member-households were sampled from a list of microfinance members in each village. For non-member households, the sample frame consists of households who own less than half an acre of land and were ranked as poor by village heads. The total number of households interviewed was 439, or about 22 households per village. Two sets of pre-tested structured questionnaires were administered to the sample households. In our econometric analysis, economic wellbeing is proxied by the measures of household income and consumption. The empirical results indicate that microfinance members remain poorer than non-members. But participation in microfinance has positive impacts: one percent increase in the duration of microfinance membership is associated with an increase of income and consumption per adult equivalent by 0.19 and 0.16 percent, respectively. Also, an additional month of participation in microfinance is associated with the lower probability of being poor (using

The effects of population growth, environmental quality and trade openness on economic growth: a panel data application

1.25 PPP per person per day) by 7 Percentage points. Our results suggest that the overall impact of microfinance operations on the economic well-being of the microfinance participants is positive. Microfinance participants’ economic well-being as proxied by income and consumption improved significantly after joining the microfinance program. The policy implications from the obtained results are that (i) the government should take steps to improve favorable environments for petty business (e.g., better infrastructure, and training of business knowledge) to enhance the effectiveness of microfinance on income-generating activities; (ii) microfinance institutions should adopt policy to reduce the interest rate and to introduce diversified products.

The Effects of Microfinance on Women's Empowerment: New Evidence from Bangladesh

The purpose of this paper is to explore the effects of population growth (PG), environmental quality and trade openness on economic growth of major developed and developing countries.,The authors have used the panel unit root and panel co-integration tests over the period 1960-2013. Granger causality test is used to find out the direction of causality between the variables.,There is a bi-directional relationship between economic growth and trade openness, and a unidirectional relation, running from trade openness to CO2 emissions in the three developed countries. PG has a positive effect on economic growth in three developing countries and there exists a bidirectional relationships between CO2 emissions and PG and a unidirectional relationship from PG to economic growth and from trade openness to economic growth. Furthermore, there is a unidirectional relationship from PG to economic growth and bidirectional relationships between trade openness and economic growth for the six selected countries.,This is the first comprehensive research that combined the selected three major developed and three major emerging countries of the world to explore the effects of three important variables on economic growth. The authors’ findings will help the policy makers as well as the people of these six countries. this study has shown the aggregate and disaggregate results, so a comparison between the groups of countries is possible. Therefore, this research has significant contributions.