Macroeconomic Instability and Terrorism Nexus: Empirical Evidence in Case of Pakistan

The current study is an attempt to analyze the association between macroeconomic instability and terrorism in Pakistan over the period of 1970 to 2020. Six important variables are taken as a proxy to measure macroeconomic instability which includes external debt, budget deficit, trade deficit, real effective exchange rate (REER), inflation and unemployment. Results indicate that there exists a long run cointegration relationship between the indictors of macroeconomic instability and terrorism. FMOLS is employed to obtain the estimates and it reveals that budget deficit and external debt is negatively associated with terrorism. It indicates that government expenditures on different project such as infrastructure create economic opportunities, therefore, reduces terrorism. Furthermore, welfare programmes also improve the performance of socioeconomic variables that translates into harmonized environment which lessens violence. The variable of trade deficit, inflation and unemployment has positive impact on terrorism while REER is insignificant. In context of trade deficit, higher imports results in job loss of domestic industries, hence, it hits the vulnerable groups. Therefore, the opportunity cost of life of these groups reduces and it increases the probability to become a part of terrorist activities. Inflation also pushes the vulnerable groups in poverty by reduces the purchasing power and unemployed individuals are also easy target to get involve themselves in acts of aggression. This study also constructs the macroeconomic instability index including the six variables through principal component analysis (PCA). Results of this model show that macroeconomic instability index and GDP has positive effect on terrorism. In case of GDP, the plausible reason could be uneven income distribution that increases terrorist activities. For the policy implications, government need to divert the resources from non-productive to productive uses through the investment in such projects which has direct and indirect impact on the welfare. In this way deprived group will enjoy economic perks and engage themselves in productive activities rather than becoming a helping hand in terrorism.

An Integrated Model of Psychological Entitlement and its Behavioral Outcomes: A Study of Service Sector of Pakistan

This research study examines the association between psychological entitlement and employee negative behavioral outcomes i.e. knowledge hiding behavior and instigated incivility accompanied by mediating role of abusive supervision perceptions. Furthermore, the intervening effect of job stress between psychological entitlement and instigated incivility is also analyzed. Apart from testing these underlying mechanisms, this study elaborates the moderating impact of hostile attribution bias on the association between psychological entitlement and abusive supervision perceptions. The buffering influence of rumination on the linkage between abusive supervision perceptions and two behavioral outcomes i.e. knowledge hiding behavior and instigated incivility is also analyzed. In addition, this research highlights that whether the sense of job calling moderates the positive impact of job stress on instigated incivility or not. Current study follows a sequential explanatory mixed method design where the first phase is quantitative in nature and the second phase is qualitative. In the quantitative phase of the study, data were gathered from 513 respondents in three time lags. Moreover, stratified random sampling technique was used for the stratification of the service sector followed by convenient sampling for data collection from the sample. In order to further explain and validate the quantitative results, unstructured one to one interviews from eight participants using the maximum variation sampling technique were conducted. Ten themes with corresponding subthemes were emerged in the qualitative phase. Integrated analysis of both phases was conducted at the end in the form of elaborate discussion. The quantitative results revealed that psychological entitlement is positively and significantly associated with knowledge hiding behavior and instigated incivility of employees. Furthermore, the mediating impact of abusive supervision perceptions and job stress were found significant. Moreover, the moderating impact of hostile attribution bias and job calling were also proved. However, the boundary level effect of rumination on the association between abusive supervision perceptions and knowledge hiding behavior and between abusive supervision perceptions and instigated incivility was found insignificant. The results of all the hypothesized relationships were further elaborated in the light of qualitative findings. The themes generated as a result of thematic analysis explained significant and insignificant findings of the quantitative phase. This research study also unfolded certain theoretical implications, practical implications and future research directions.