This article presents a descriptive analysis of terrorism in Pakistan over the past three decades. Using statistical tools, the authors disentangle terrorist violence to expose underlying trends. Continuities and discontinuities in the various types of terrorism are identified and correlated with domestic and international events. The gravity of terrorist violence is found to change from one region of the country to another in response to geopolitical events. The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa share of terrorist incidents during the last three decades fell from 45% to 5% and then rebounded to 58%. Sindh's share of terrorist incidents followed an opposite pattern over the three decades, increasing from 23% to 68% and then decreasing again to just 9%. Terrorist incidents were most frequent in the 1990s but most lethal in the 2000s. Overall, terrorist violence has followed an increasing trend. The composition of terrorist attacks (sectarian, ethnic, and non-sectarian religious) has changed over the past three decades, with sectarian terrorism emerging as the more lethal, causing almost six casualties per attack. Terrorist methods have also changed over time, with bombings becoming less prominent in the 1990s but much more common in the 2000s. The geographical distribution of terrorist incidents has likewise changed over time -national and provincial capitals were targeted 64% of the time in the 1980s and just 25% of the time today. Overall, the authors conclude that the methods and pattern of terrorist incidents change logically in response to changes in the geopolitical environment.

This study offers fresh empirical insights into the causes of terrorism inPakistan. The authors present a novel strategy for hypothesis building in conflict studies, and explore the importance of the explanatory variables within the time frame of the analysis. The hypothesized relationships are tested using pooled cross-section time series data from five regions of Pakistan (the federally controlled area and four provinces from 1980 to 2010) using fixed effect negative binomial regression. The results indicate that public education expenditures, law & order expenditures, ethnic diversity, urban population, the presence of domestic military operations, and U.S. military aid to Pakistan all result in increased terrorist activity in Pakistan. This study recommends that ethnic diversity and multilingualism be respected in education in Pakistan, that the educational curriculum be cleansed of systemic incendiary language and bigotry, that law enforcement agencies be freed of political control, and that strategic partnership with the United States be reassessed considering the core long-term interests of Pakistan.

This study analyses the dynamics of causal linkages between terrorism and economic growth across four provinces of Pakistan using Bivariate and Trivariate Hsaio Granger Causality test. The empirical evidence reveals within country idiosyncratic causal trends; hence demonstrating the importance of analysing sub-national variations while determining the extent to which terrorism is related with other variables. The estimates suggest that terrorist activity Granger causes economic growth in Sindh, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan provinces. The reverse causation from economic growth to terrorism is observed in case of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa only. The evidence presented in this paper stresses the importance of taking into account higher vulnerability of comparatively weaker sub-national economies while formulating relevant policies to ameliorate negative impact of terrorism.

The objective of this study is to examine the effect of firms' characteristics and audit quality in Turkey. This study provides additional insights for audit quality literature by examining how firms characteristic effect on clients' incentives and abilities to demand high audit quality in Turkey. Turkey is one of the less developed and most under-researched capital markets in the world. This study used the data of 146 firms listed in Borsa Istanbul (BIST) over the period from 2011 to 2015. Using logistic regression, the findings explained that clients' incentives and abilities to demand high audit quality weaken because of control-ownership wedge, which an unfavourable outcome for minority shareholders. Thus, this study proposes that regulators, particularly the Capital Market Board of Turkey (CMBT), should increase law enforcement to enhance good corporate governance in Turkey to accommodate the unique features of wedge firms and provide a protected environment for minority shareholders.

The primary objective of accounting, as an information system, is the measurement and delivery of data and information to the decision makers of users. Among the users, there are the financial authority of the appraisers and the tax examination procedures. However, the pursuit of some companies management to adopt procedures that would get illegal gains in so-called earnings management procedures. These procedures would work to create a gap in confidence in the services provided by the accounting profession. This situation causes suspicious cases on financial statements prepared by these services in the regard of official government bodies for tax function. The researcher reached, through the theoretical and practical aspects, certain conclusions. The most important of which is the earning management practiced today by companies in Iraqi Kurdistan Region to reduce the real profit in order to avoid the tax imposed on them. The alternatives in the accounting treatments and flexibility in the accounting standards is not the way paved to earningsmanagement practices if the accountant does not respect the rules and ethics of the their profession, choosing the inappropriate alternative to the nature of the company’s activity. Another conclusion is the existence of collusion between the external auditors and the taxpayer’s company. Accordingly, the study recommended that the concerned bodies should ensure that earnings management is not practiced by companies. The need of awareness is raised about earning management and negative effects on companies. The need to maintain a single accounting process is relevant and not change it without the approval of the competent authorities. it is necessary to emphasis on company governance and not to allow the collusion between the auditors and the taxpayer’s companies, activating the role of the association of accountants and auditors, in order to advancement of the profession as well as to defend the accountants members in case of facing pressures from the owners to manipulate and cheating.