Open Access

The present study investigates the impact of income inequality on women’s empowerment in the districts of Punjab, Pakistan. Data on income inequality, women's empowerment, and other variables of interest are drawn from four waves of the Multiple Indicators Cluster Survey for the period 2008 to 2018. Three aspects, including education, health, and political participation of women, have been considered in the measurement of the women empowerment index. A fixed-effects approach is applied for the empirical evaluation of the data. The empirical outcomes show that a reduction in income inequality is significantly helpful in enhancing women’s empowerment across all districts.

This study examines the impact of macroeconomic and bank-specific indicators on the profitability of Pakistan’s banking sector, focusing on the volatile post-2018 period. Using return on assets (ROA) as the performance metric, it analyzes data from 20 commercial banks between 2018 and 2023. Panel data regression, conducted via Gretl software, reveals that these internal factors—Capital Adequacy Ratio (CAR), Spread Ratio (SR), and Earnings per Share (EPS)—positively and significantly influence ROA, while Firm Size (SZ) has a significant negative effect. In contrast, macroeconomic indicators like Exchange Rate (EXR), GDP, and Policy Rate (POLR) show insignificant negative relationships, and Inflation (INF), Foreign Exchange Reserves (FXRV), and Cash Equivalents (CEQU) have insignificant positive effects. These findings highlight that bank-level factors play a more critical role than external economic conditions in determining profitability. The study recommends that bank managers focus on operational efficiency and

Environmental challenges have emerged as one of the most critical matters affecting the globe today. Human-caused carbon emissions are the primary cause of these environmental challenges, and in order to decrease and mitigate their impacts, officials throughout the world are constantly researching their drivers and determinants. BRICS is considered a significant part of the world economy and energy markets. This study examines the EKC hypothesis for the BRICS while applying a nonlinear ARDL approach that distinguishes it from previous studies. For this purpose, this study decomposes the per-capita income (GPC) series into two components: the positive and the negative series. Empirical findings indicate that in the decomposed model, the coefficients of the positive series of GPC and GPC2 have significant negative and positive signs, respectively, in all countries of the region, which supports the EKC hypothesis. Results imply that BRICS governments need to focus on reducing their very considerable dependence on fossil fuels. The clean energy evolution can lead to the abandonment of fossil fuel assets, including those retained or supported by governments.

The current study analyzed the Behavioral Intentions and determinants of consumer preferences about Islamic Banking in Faisalabad. The primary data for this study is collected from 230 consumers in 2024 from different Islamic Banks in Faisalabad region. To estimate the consumer’s preferences and satisfaction about Islamic banking, the study employs binary logistic regression model. The variable of consumer preference is dependent variable and in binary form. Moreover, awareness of Islamic banking, perceived sharia compliance and, trust in Islamic institutions are main independent variables of the study. According to the estimated results, the variable of respondent education, knowledge about the profit margin on Islamic bank, Awareness about service quality, insurance policy according to Shariah laws, leasing policy according to Shariah laws, deposit policy according to Shariah laws, bank charges, shows positive and significant relationship with the consumer preferences. Regarding demographic variables, the age of respondents, urban and rural region, marital status, gender, religion show positive but insignificant relation with the consumer preferences. On this research provide some suggestions and policy recommendations for concerned policy maker based on customer satisfaction and Knowledge in Islamic banking and shariah compliance.

The role of electoral incentives on public spending patterns is particularly relevant in developing nations such as Pakistan as it has direct bearing on the issue of fiscal discipline and quality of governance. This study examines the role of electoral cycles on sectoral budgetary allocations at provincial level in Pakistan. Based on panel data of four provinces covering the years 1972-2018, the study uses a Fixed Effects (FE) model to determine dynamic variations in budgetary patterns. These findings are quite solid in favor of the Political Business Cycle (PBC) hypothesis with the results showing that government spending rises by a large margin (23 percentage points of GDP) in election years. It also shows that population development and openness to trade have impact of high magnitude that is positive when it comes to government expenditure, and unemployment level has no significant impact. The evidence shows a greater requirement of fiscal policies and institutional limits so as to put down opportunistic expenditure of the incumbent governments. Pakistan ought to think about institutionalizing long-term rules-based budgetary plans at provinces level to curb discretional expenditure during elections. Opportunistic fiscal expansions could be hindered by legal provisions making statutory budget ceilings obligatory before elections. Lastly, adopting practices of participatory budgeting on a local government level would increase citizen involvement and responsibility, which would minimize the room on fruitlessly spending money based on political interests

Rising CO₂ emissions pose a global challenge, including in South Asia. This study examines the determinants of CO₂ emissions—economic growth, urbanization, tourism, industrialization, renewable energy, agriculture, and forest area—using panel data (1990–2021) from South Asian countries. Dynamic Ordinary Least Squares (DOLS) and panel unit root tests reveal long-run relationships. Urbanization, tourism, and agricultural value-added significantly increase CO₂ emissions, while economic growth, renewable energy, and forest area negatively correlate with emissions. The findings suggest that energy-intensive urbanization, tourism, and agricultural expansion drive emissions, whereas renewable energy adoption and forest conservation mitigate them. Policymakers must prioritize sustainable urbanization, green tourism, and renewable energy transitions to curb emissions while fostering economic development.

This study examines the impact of foreign remittances on household welfare in district Mansehra. Primary data were used for this purpose. Data were collected through questionnaires from a sample of 294 households. The study estimates welfare as the dependent variable, calculated from household expenditures on food and non-food items. Housing conditions, access to necessities, and women's empowerment were used to assess financial well-being. Simple OLS regression analysis was employed for estimation. The study finds a positive and significant relationship between remittances and household well-being.

This study has empirically aimed at estimating the short-and long-term dynamics of financial and institutional factors with respect to the unemployment rate in the case of the selected developing economies over the period of 1996-2023. The second-generation empirical analyses, such as cross-sectional dependence and unit-root analysis, support the use of pooled mean group regression analysis. The empirical outcomes of the pooled mean group regression have confirmed the existence of Okun’s law in the influence of a rise in control of corruption, government effectiveness, and political stability to reduce the unemployment rate in this region. Among the financial factors, the economic growth-unemployment rate nexus significantly validates the existence of Okun’s law. Further, the exchange rate is also highly significant in decreasing the unemployment rate in this region. However, the negative impact of the interest rate and the positive effect of broad money growth are surprisingly significant in affecting the unemployment rate and contradict the literature. Surprisingly, the institutional factors are more responsive to the unemployment rate compared with financial indicators. These outcomes suggest important policy implications regarding institutional and financial factors to control the unemployment rate in these economies

A new Comparative Human Capabilities Index (CHCI), which goes beyond conventional measures like GDP or HDI, is presented in this study to evaluate the economic progress of South Asian nations. GDP per capita, GDP per person employed, trade as a percentage of GDP, life expectancy, secondary school enrollment, and GDP per capita are the six main variables that make up the index, which is based on Amartya Sen's capability approach. Data were collected from the World Bank for eight nations between 2001 and 2015: Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka. In order to ensure comparability across variables, the CHCI was built using equal weighting and min-max normalization. The findings indicate that while Bangladesh and India have made notable progress over time, the Maldives and Sri Lanka continue to rank first in terms of human skills. Despite beginning with lower levels, Afghanistan and Nepal showed signs of improvement over time. As an alternative to more conventional indices like the Human progress Index (HDI), the index offers a more human-centered and inclusive lens through which to view the region's economic progress. This strategy emphasizes how crucial it is to make investments in productivity, health, and education in order to achieve long-term, fair development.

It is evident that internet banking (e-banking) revolutionizes financial management through convenience, speed, and accessibility, thus enhancing customer welfare by saving time, reducing costs, and increasing financial control. Hence, this study expands on existing literature by analyzing the impact of e-banking on customer welfare, particularly in banks of Southern Punjab, Pakistan. This study uses Zenithal et al.'s (2005) e-SQ/e-SERVQUAL framework and IFC's (2013) MBQ model, treating customer welfare as an outcome of e-banking service quality. A descriptive-exploratory design was employed to analyze the cause-and-effect relationship between e-banking services and customer welfare. A Logit Model was developed based on data collected from 1029 customers of real-time online branches (RTOB) located in Southern Punjab, Pakistan, to estimate the econometric properties for determining the relationship between e-banking and customer welfare. Findings reveal that E-banking explains 68.59% of welfare variance (R²=0.6859, Adj. R²=0.6825). The Logit model is significant (F=206.33, p=0.000), with education (β=0.009, p=0.012), e-compensation, efficiency, responsiveness, and website layout (all p=0.000) as positive predictors. Gender, location, age, marital status, and income showed no significant impact (p>0.05). The study highlights that Pakistan's banking sector, particularly in Southern Punjab, must improve digital literacy, banking services, and rural infrastructure to enhance e-banking adoption and financial inclusion and contribute more to customer welfare.

Financial inclusion offers significant benefits to the unbanked poor population, but barriers such as low literacy, lack of trust in formal financial institutions, and high transaction costs often hinder the use of formal banking services. On the other hand, the Community Investment Fund (CIF) is a revolving grant managed by community-based organisations that provides a low-cost, sustainable solution. The paper examines the impact of financial inclusion through CIF funds on poverty graduation in Rural Sindh, Pakistan. The Poverty Scorecard (PSC) tool is used to assess the changes in the poverty status of CIF loan and grant beneficiaries using before-and-after approaches. A household survey dataset from rural Sindh, covering 4,023 randomly selected households, is analysed. The findings suggest that financial inclusion through community investment funds has positively impacted poor households and helped them graduate from a lower poverty band to a higher one. Compared to conventional sources of finance like Microfinance Banks, the findings suggest that CIF loans appear to be largely cost-effective. We thus recommend increasing CIF coverage for poor segments of the population in Pakistan, as it provides a low-cost, sustainable solution for poverty graduation and increases the cost-effectiveness of social protection programmes in the country.

This paper explores how CO2 is emitted in 30 developing Asian economies. Such countries differ in terms of income levels, such as low, middle, and high income, and the years between 1990 and 2022 are included in the study. It employs a powerful econometric model in which both the System Generalized Method of Moments (GMM) is used to overcome dynamic endogeneity and Two-Stage Least Squares (2SLS) is used to overcome potential reverse causality. This integrated methodology serves well to investigate the impacts of renewable energy use, the availability of natural resources, and technological innovation on the level of emissions. These findings of the study demonstrate a complex dynamic. There is presently a positive relationship between technological innovation and the rise in emissions, which can be attributed to the fact that technology is used to streamline the industrialization process that uses fossil fuels on a large scale. On the contrary, renewable energy and natural resources also contribute to the decrease in CO2 emissions. One of the biggest revelations is that production-oriented industrialization, particularly after China's entry into the WTO in 2001, has contributed greatly to the growth in global emissions. Since, in most cases, the area lacks powerful and effective environmental laws, this study emphasizes the necessity of modifications in policy. Steps such as promoting green innovation technology and introducing a price on carbon are crucial to uncoupling economic growth and emissions and creating an efficient global climate policy.

Social security is seen as a fundamental human right. The aim of this study is to explore the effect of social protection on the labor market dynamic. This study is based on the HIES data set from 2018-19. Binary logistic regression is used to estimate the parameters of the labor force participation model. This study found that beneficiaries of social protection programs have a negative trend toward labor force participation in Pakistan. In addition, it is observed that some social indicators like age, the rural living region, and male household head significantly effect on labor force participation. This study also attempts to fill the gap by examining the effect that LFP on educational attainments. The study attempts to highlight the effect of social protection on LFP at the provincial level. The results explore the positive effect on labor force participation of beneficiaries by different age categories. Female labor force participation of grant receivers in Pakistan is still below as compared to males. The results show that the impacts of higher educated people on the labor force are low as compared to uneducated. The study concludes by lying out some recommendations.

From time series data covering 1972 to 2024, the objective of the study is to investigate the Okun's coefficient for Pakistan. The coefficient of Okun's law is determined using the Augmented ARDL econometric technique to estimate the long-run elasticities and short-run dynamics while sidestepping degenerate cases. Four variations of the Okun's law—the gap, difference, dynamic version, and augmented production function versions—are applied to estimate the Okun's coefficient. In order to measure output and unemployment gap, Hodrick-rescott (HP) filter is also used. The empirical results demonstrated that in case of Pakistan the law doesn’t hold as evidenced by the comparatively low coefficients obtained applying all four versions.

This study proposes an investigation into the relationship between money demand and economic uncertainty in Pakistan. This study extends the Keynes money demand function by including the optimal uncertainty index and analyzes the impact of uncertainty on the money demand. We employed annual data from 1990-2022 and ARDL for data analysis. We used money demand as the dependent variable, the world uncertainty index for Pakistan as a core explanatory variable, with other control variables. The empirical results indicate the existence of a long-run and direct relationship between uncertainty and money demand in Pakistan. The study also provides valuable implications for policymakers for a stable money market.

Energy investment plays a pivotal role in promoting economic sustainability through a reliable energy supply to support industrial production and innovation. The current work investigates the difference in energy investment and economic sustainability between 1990 and 2022 for 88 developing countries with an income classification. Using the Cross-Sectional Autoregressive Distributed Lag (CS-ARDL) methodology, the research simultaneously tests short- and long-run dynamics while explicitly modeling cross-sectional dependence. The results suggest that although labor force participation, capital formation, human capital, and foreign direct investment have positive impacts on economic sustainability across income levels, energy investment, especially when used for creating public-private partnerships, fosters economic growth in middle-income economies but has a negative correlation with low-income economies. Policy implications drawn from the findings indicate that boosting investment in the energy sector, with special focus on the use of renewable technologies in low- income countries, would be an effective strategy for promoting sustainable development.

The study aims to investigate the determinants of the shadow economy in SAARC countries during the period from 1995 to 2021. The study uses three proxies for the shadow economy as dependent variables, which are the ratio of reserve to narrow money (Shadow-1), the ratio of narrow to broad money (Shadow-2), and the ratio of currency in circulation to broad money (Shadow-3), while trade, tax, unemployment, government final consumption expenditure (GFCE), governance index (GI), and economic freedom index (EFI) are used as independent variables. The study applies the second-generation panel unit root test and the method of moments-quantile regression (MM-QR) technique. The findings of the study are that, as theoretically expected, the independent variables, trade, tax, unemployment, and government final consumption expenditure (GFCE), have positive and significant coefficients, while the governance index (GI) and economic freedom index (EFI) have a negative and significant effect on the shadow economy in SAARC countries. The study suggests that economic freedom and governance quality should be improved, and government size, tax, and unemployment should be decreased to control the shadow economy in SAARC countries.

The present study contributes empirical evidence to the impact of remittances on the socio-economic well-being of recipient nations, particularly through the enhancement of their Human Development Index (HDI) rankings. Utilizing a panel dataset comprising the top ten remittance-receiving countries over the period from 1990 to 2020, the research endeavors to offer a comprehensive analysis of the relationship between remittance inflows and HDI metrics. This investigation delves into the nuanced dimensions of HDI, namely health, education, and income per capita, to discern the specific effects of remittances on each component. The study employs the generalized method of moments (GMM) technique to mitigate potential endogeneity concerns inherent in the relationship between remittances and financial development. The findings of this empirical inquiry suggest that remittances wield a discernible influence on augmenting human well-being, particularly by fostering improvements in health and education outcomes. Additionally, the study identifies a constructive role for financial development in bolstering HDI indicators. In light of these findings, it is recommended that policymakers formulate tailored strategies aimed at facilitating remittance flows, thereby affording migrants enhanced access to robust financial systems.