This study examined the relationship of Corporate Governance (CG) on the efficiency of commercial banks listed on the Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX) over the period from 2005 to 2014. The CG of commercial banks is measured with the composite CG index which is further subdivided into: board of directors, audit committee, disclosure and transparency, remuneration committee and shareholder's rights. The Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) approach is used to measure the technical efficiency (TE) and cost efficiency (CE) whereas the Tobit regression model is used to investigate the relationship between CG and both efficiency scores. The results for the composite CG index suggest that there is a positive and significant relationship of CG with both TE and CE of commercial banks. Moreover, the subindices also validate our results as they were mostly found positively and significantly associated with both efficiencies.

Contribution/ Originality: This study is one of very few studies which have investigated the separate as well as combined effects of trade openness and net migration on economic growth, capital-labor ratio, total factor productivity, and labor employment ratio for emerging economies. The study controls endogeneity problem by employing two-stage least squares technique.

Environmental pollution and sustainable development have become major concerns for policy makers as both may not be achieved simultaneously. On one hand, economic growth and foreign direct investments (FDI) are necessary for the countries to prosper. On the other hand, economic growth and FDI are related with environmental pollution which affects atmosphere at global level and poses threat to all those who share common environment. To address this concern, this study tests the validly of environmental Kuznets curve (EKC) and pollution haven hypothesis (PHH) for CO2 emission. The study uses cross-sectional as well as panel data for a sample of 42 countries from three continents (Asia, Africa and Europe) and covers the period from 1990 to 2014. The study applies ordinary least square, pooled OLS, fixed effect model, random effect and twostage least square techniques to estimate the models. The study finds that energy use and globalization positively impact pollution when estimated for full sample. Moreover, the study suggests that EKC holds for full sample, Asia, and Europe while results do not confirm EKC for Africa continent. Besides, the study finds that PHH does not sustain in any of the three continents. The study suggests that use of cleaner energy should be promoted to mitigate CO2 emission. Therefore, the policy makers should design alternative policies for Africa to reduce global environmental degradation.

The most contentious element in debate regarding corporate governance is the association of corporate governance (CG) with firm performance. This research employed the 2SLS regression model on a panel data, collected from 24 Asian multinationals from 2006 to 2015. The firm performance was measured in two ways; accounting measure (ROA and sales growth) and market measure (Tobin's Q). The outcomes demonstrate that quality of corporate governance (QCG) index has a significant association in enhancing the performance of firms in Asian economies. Furthermore, these results also indicate that explicit corporate governance variables such as board independence, audit committee independence, ownership concentration and CEO duality, also have significant association with the performance of companies in Asian countries which is in accordance with the agency theory.

The objective of this study are 1) To review the definition of organic farming 2) To investigate the international and local standard for organic food and 3) To compare gross margin between organic and inorganic paddy farming. Using field evaluation and interview techniques, this study conducted a study on 3 organic farms and 27 inorganic paddy farms in Malaysia. Two leading organic agriculture regulators in the world are IFOAM and USDA, IFOAM allows private standard setters to define their additional criteria and USDA does not allow others to set a standard that is above the federal. This study also laid out a few organic accreditations in several Asian countries including Thailand, Indonesia, Cambodia, Japan, India, and China. Field evaluation of conventional and organic paddy plantation are discussed and it is found that organic plantation earned less gross margins (13.5 %) as compared to inorganic farming. This study may give some inputs for the Research and Development (R&D) department to improve the organic farming activities and how to reduce its cost and increase its gross margin. Organic farming is important as it is sustainable to lure bio-economy strategy and food security in Malaysia as laid out in National Agricultural Policy.