The objective of the study investigates the effects of health on changing labor force participation during Pakistan’s economic transition in the 1980s, a period of several economic liberalization and international integration on the health and financial sectors. The study employed the autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) co-integration technique to estimate the short- and long-run elasticities, while the Wald coefficient restrictions tests was used to determine the dynamic short-run causality between the variables over a period of 1975–2011. The study was limited to a few variables, including age dependency, health expenditures, trade openness, population per bed, life expectancy, gross capital formation, mortality rate, secondary school enrolment and labor force participation rate, in order to manage robust data analysis. The results suggest that infant mortality rate (IMR), gross capital formation (GCF) and secondary school enrolment (SSE) decrease the labor force participation rate in the long-run, as if there is one percent increase IMR, GCF and SSE, labor force participation decreases by 0.653 percent, 0.137 percent and 0.220 percent respectively, however, these results invert the relationship in short-run. The study also finds that health expenditures has positive and significant impact on labor force participation rate in the short-run, but this result disappear in the long-run. Trade liberalization has a positive effect in the short run, while a negative effect is observed in the long run upon labor force participation rate of Pakistan. The study confirms that Pakistan did not enjoy substantial growth benefits related to health care because human capital (secondary school enrolment), trade openness, public investment and infant mortality rate have a negative impact on labor force participation rate. These findings have important policy implications.Jel codesH51, I21, J21.

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Internationalization of higher education is not a new phenomenon. The concept has grown more by the time and now it has become an important strategic priority for many institutions and governments. Governments and institutions have invested and continue to invest considerable resource in internationalization. Internationalization of higher education is seen as one of the ways a country responds to the impact of globalization. The aim of this study is to examine how the process of internationalization has evolved overtime, and how it is occurring in today’s global knowledge economy. This article presents the review of the process of internationalization of higher education in a historical context. It also discusses that international mobility of students, scholars, programs, and institutions of higher education is driven by academic, cultural, political, and economic rationales. Furthermore, the study concludes that most of the higher education institutions refrain from aiming to become global institutions because of the academic and economic barriers.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the factors that affect real exchange rate volatility for Pakistan through the co-integration and error correction model over a 30-year time period, i.e. between 1980 and 2010. The study employed the autoregressive conditional heteroskedasticity (ARCH), generalized autoregressive conditional heteroskedasticity (GARCH) and Vector Error Correction model (VECM) to estimate the changes in the volatility of real exchange rate series, while an error correction model was used to determine the short-run dynamics of the system. The study is limited to a few variables i.e., productivity differential (i.e., real GDP per capita relative to main trading partner); terms of trade; trade openness and government expenditures in order to manage robust data. The result indicates that real effective exchange rate (REER) has been volatile around its equilibrium level; while, the speed of adjustment is relatively slow. VECM results confirm long run convergence of real exchange rate towards its equilibrium level. Results from ARCH and GARCH estimation shows that real shocks volatility persists, so that shocks die out rather slowly, and lasting misalignment seems to have occurred.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (doi:10.1186/2193-1801-2-292) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.