Suchergebnisse

The flow of workers' remittances to Pakistan has more than quadrupled in the last eight years and it shows no sign of slowing down, despite the economic downturn in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) and other important host countries for Pakistani workers. This paper analyses the forces that have driven remittance flows to Pakistan in recent years. The main conclusions are: (i) the growth in the inflow of workers' remittances to Pakistan is in large part due to an increase in worker migration; (ii) higher skill levels of migrating workers have helped to boost remittances; (iii) other imporant

The flow of workers' remittances to Pakistan has more than
quadrupled in the last eight years and shows no sign of slowing down,
despite the economic downturn in the Gulf Cooperation Council and other
important host countries for Pakistani workers. This paper analyses the
forces that have driven remittance flows to Pakistan in recent years. A
methodological innovation is that we study the behaviour of per capita
remittances and draw a close link between remittances and remitters'
earning capacity, in the belief that higher earning power leads to more
remittances. Our main conclusions are that (i) the growth in the inflow
of workers' remittances to Pakistan is in large part due to an increase
in worker migration, (ii) the higher skill levels of migrating workers
has helped boost remittances, and (iii) other imporant determinants of
remittances to Pakistan are agricultural output and the relative yield
on investments in the host and home countries. JEL classification: F22,
F24 Keywords: Workers' Remittances, Migration, Pakistan

Although the primary goals of post war housing policy in The Netherlands have beenaccomplished, the Dutch housing market remains highly regulated. This paper develops a staticpartial equilibrium model to investigate the effects of deregulation on the private marketprices and the allocation of houses among households. We focus on three policy measures:individual rent support, social housing projects and the fiscal rules for owner occupiedhouses.

Halal certification of financials product may reduce transaction costs for its buyers when it provides a trusted standard for investors that seek to comply with Islamic law. However, we show that in practice it takes considerable amounts of time (20 days ) and money (USD 122,000) to obtain a halal certification. Mainly, this is because the market is very concentrated and forms a closed circuit. About 20 Sharia scholars control more than half the market, of which the top 3 earn an estimated USD 4.5 mln in fees per year. Moreover this market seems plagued by a number of problems, most notably a strong incentive to be excessively lenient in certification, sub-standard governance practices, lack of consensus regarding certification standards and limited knowledge of finance. Therefore it is questionable whether the reduction in transaction costs through halal certification outweighs the costs of certification. Consolidation of the numerous ways halal certifica tion can be obtained and moving halal certification more into the public goods sphere, where a neutral non-profit government induced party should assume the current role of the halal certifiers, may enhance the reputation of certifies and reduce the transaction costs associated with halal certification.