Aim and Scope

This study aims at evaluating the validity of the “Triple (Current Account, Budget & Financial) Deficit Hypothesis (TDH)” the extension of the “Twin Deficit Hypothesis (TDH)” for the of South Asian countries i.e., (Bangladesh, India, Pakistan & Sri-Lanka) by using the panel data for the era of 2000-2021. First, the stationarity is to be tested of the “Current Account Deficit (CAD)”, the “Budget Deficit (BD,)” and the “Financial Deficit (FD)”. However, the results show that although other variables are stationary at the 1st difference I(1) except one i.e., , the CAD is non-stationary at a level I(0). All variables, however, are stationary at the 1st difference. Furthermore, the co-integration test indicates that co-integration exists among the series means that long-term association is present among the variables. The findings of the “VECM Granger Causality Test” demonstrate the existence of a two-way causal link between CAD & BD and between CAD and Financial deficit which indicates that the improvement in the current account balance (CAB) while the fiscal adjustment is not totally controlled by policy and necessitates CAD adjustment, it also demands fiscal austerity. As a result, we can draw the conclusion that the "Triple Deficit Hypothesis [TDH]" holds to the South Asian region.

Infant mortality is a common problem of the developing countries. Though Pakistan has reduced the infants’ death number from 106 deaths in 1990 to 62 deaths in 2018 in every 1000 infants, still stands among the highest infant death rate countries in the world. The present study is an attempt to assess the role of mothers’ empowerment (measured with Women’s Empowerment Index), utilization of child healthcare services and demographics in the infant mortality rate in Pakistan. The convenient sample of 300 ever married women of reproductive age (21-49), having at least one child, was taken from three city districts of Punjab, Pakistan (viz., Multan, Khanewal, & Dera Ghazi Khan). The result of the Ordinary Least Squares technique indicated that two dimensions of women/mothers’ empowerment viz., economic and familial, mother’s age at marriage, mothers’ education, antenatal care, postnatal care, and vaccination status had negative impact on infants’ mortality rate in Pakistan. The recommendations have been given in the light of the results attained.

The world was running in the usual way that suddenly on 20 December 2019 two patients with a freaky disease came to Wuhan hospital in China. Initially, doctors did not take this disease seriously. However, with time, the number of patients with this disease increased. Then this disease outbreak all over China within 2 to 3 months condition which initiated in Wuhan city until March it engulfed entire China. All the big cities, Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzhen Guangzhou, and Wuhan were completely shut down, and businesses of the people’s completely shut down. Colleges and Universities have been closed with no transportation including air transportation and no delivery system. In short, all the departments and institutions were badly suffered gradually. The whole of China was engulfed in this disease like a swamp. On April 23, China started normally working with the measurement by wearing masks, taking the initial COVID-19 test and keeping a distance of 1 meter from person to person. It was revealed that the disease spreads by touching, breathing and other things. The latter condition becomes airborne; therefore, all the possible measures were adopted to control the disease outbreak.

This study examines the existence of the Ricardian Equivalence Hypothesis (REH) in the combined case of Group of Seven (G7) and South Asian Association of Regional Cooperation (SAARC) countries. This study is done under the assumption that the combined case of developed and developing economies will give evidence of REH. A panel data set from 2001 to 2019 is utilized for seven variables; Disposable Income, Household Final Consumption Expenditure, Government Budget Deficit, General Government Gross Debt, General Government Total Expenditure, General Government Revenue, and Wealth. The stationarity of these variables has checked by five different unit root tests; IPS, Fisher and Choi based ADF, and Fisher and Choi based PP. In the light of the Hausman test, we have adopted the random effect model to precede Panel Least Square (PLS). After applying PLS, the Wald test has rejected all restrictions which were applied to prove the existence of REH in developed and developing economies. Results showed that fiscal policy should be one of the stabilization policies in this understudy economic world to control the revenues and expenditure side.

Foreign direct investment, commodity production sector, and inflation play an incredibly important part in the economic growth of any country developing nations, particularly. In developing countries like Pakistan, foreign direct investment is frequently regarded as a major component of economic progress. The agriculture sector in Pakistan is extremely important to the economy, contributing 18.9% of GDP and employing 42.3 percent of the workforce, and also Industry is regarded as the most important industry for economic development. In Pakistan, as in most emerging and developed countries, inflation is a big issue. The basic motive of this research is to investigate the effect of foreign direct investment, commodity production, and inflation on the GDP rate of growth in Pakistan, by taking time-series data from 1990 to 2019, by world development indicator, and economic surveys of Pakistan. GDP rate of growth is used as dependent while, FDI, commodity production, consumer price index, interest rate, Gross capital formation, and labor force participation rate are used as explanatory variables. Based on the unit root analysis, we applied Nonlinear Autoregressive distributed lag model. And the finding revealed that a positive shock in foreign direct investment and commodity production has a positive and significant impact on Pakistan's economy, but the negative shock has a negative but insignificant influence on the economic development of Pakistan. Although the consumer price index has a negative but significant impact on the GDP growth rate