Impact of Institutional Quality on Trade Performance of Small and Medium Enterprises in Pakistan

The trade economy is dependent upon the institutional quality of the country. It affects the ease of doing business in the economy. It is plausible to think that, how institutional quality can affect the trading performance of Pakistan. Small & medium enterprises (SMEs) are playing the role of the backbone of the trade sector in Pakistan. Contribution SMEs can be significantly improved, by improving the supporting macroeconomic indicators. This paper studies the short-run and the long-run association between SME trade growth and cost of production, relative prices, and Institutional quality in Pakistan. It also examines the Environmental Kuznets curve (EKC) hypothesis, between SME trade growth and institutional quality in Pakistan. This study utilizes secondary data, which is taken from multiple secondary sources, including the SMEDA, Pakistan Economic Survey, and world development indicators. The biannual data is assembled up for 38 observations from (2000 to 2019). This study uses Auto Regressive Distributive Lag (ARDL) bound testing method to examine the short run and long run connections between SMEs’ trade growth and macro-economic variables, like; relative prices, Cost of production. Gross Domestic Product, exchange rate, and institutional quality. These variables are selected from the available literature. The study finds that the short-run response of SMEs trade is not significant, but it significantly responds to macro-economic indicators in long run. The institutional quality has a non-linear relationship with SMEs trade growth. This indicates that the pollution heaven hypothesis holds valid even for the case of institutional quality and SMEs trading performance. The study focuses on the optimality of institutional quality for the optimal performance level of SMEs in Pakistan.

Relationship of Meteorological Variables With Lentil Grey Mold and its Management

Botrytis grey mold (BGM) is the most important biological constraint for lentil crop in Pakistan. During 2007-08 and 2008-09, 912 varieties/lines were evaluated under field conditions. There was no line found to exhibit immunity against Botrytis grey mold. 452 and 236 varieties/lines exhibited moderately resistant response against Botrytis grey mold during 2007-08 and 2008-09, respectively. During 2007-08 and 2008-09, 652 and 863 varieties/lines exhibited susceptible response to Botrytis grey mold. 166 varieties/lines exhibited highly susceptible response to Botrytis grey mold during 2007-08, while 171 one exhibited highly susceptible response to Botrytis grey mold during 2008-09. Maximum disease development occurred at temperature 23-26 oC and 18-24 oC, relative humidity at 5 pm 36-54 %, rainfall 0-3 mm, wind speed 3-5 Km/h and sun shine 6-10 hours. The data of susceptible to highly susceptible lines/ varieties and meteorological variables were subjected step wise regression analysis based on two years data a model consisting of all environmental variables explained 98 % variability in disease development. When these were split by years; a three environmental variable model consisting of sun shine hours, relative humidity % at 8 am, relative humidity % at 5 pm explained 96 % variability in botrytis grey mold severity during 2008. However, during 2009, four environmental variables model consisting of wind speed Km/h at 8 am, max temperature oC, relative humidity % at 5 pm and rain fall mm explained 99 % variability in botrytis grey mold severity. For the management of BGM, three antagonists (Trichoderma harzianum, Aspergillus flavus and A. niger), three plant extract (Azadirachta indica, Bougainvillea spectabilis and Eucalyptus terticornis) coupled with three fungicides including Topsin-M, Cabriotop, and Antracol with different doses were used in laboratory experiment to assess their effectiveness against the colony growth of Botrytis cinerea. Out of these, Cabriotop, Trichoderma harzianum, Azadirachta indica were found effective in inhibiting the mycelium growth of the fungus. These same treatments were also found effective in greenhouse experiments. The most effective treatments were tested on two varieties and one advanced line under field condition. Among these Cabrio top at 150 ppm was most effective in controlling BGM on Masoor-85, Masoor-93 and line 00518. The protective spray of these treatments was significantly effective compared to curative spray.