The Trickster essays

The Trickster papers The swindler figure found in American Indian Mythology is a profound impression of our internal mind. Profound inside us, we as a whole can locate the wrathful, creature senses that characterize some portion of the Trickster. We can likewise discover the incongruity inside this character drives us to challenge cultural pecking order and marvel whether life would be better whenever lived on an a lot less complex level. What truly is the figure known as the Trickster? Radin portrays the character in his prefatory note: Cheat is at very much the same time maker and destroyer, provider and negator, he who hoodwinks others and who is constantly tricked himself. He wills nothing intentionally. Consistently he is obliged to carry on as he does from driving forces over which he has no control. He knows neither great nor detestable yet he is answerable for both. He has no qualities, good or social, is helpless before his interests and hungers, yet through his activities all qualities appear. The figure known as the Trickster shows up in numerous societies with various structures. Numerous Native American individuals told stories of Coyote. Among the Lakota, Spider wove the cheat's web. Among Northwest Coastal individuals, just as some Siberian gatherings on the contrary side of the Pacific, Raven took on the cheat's job. The Blackfoot of the northern Plains considered both To be and Raven as swindlers. Around the world, an assortment of creatures have taken on the cheat's job. In European and Chinese old stories, Fox regularly fills the role; some African individuals see Fox in a similar light. Monkeys are cheats in the Far East, and littler animals like Wasp and Mantis show up too. Karl Jung's clarification for the prime example that surfaces as the Trickster is that they are the result of what he calls the aggregate obviousness. That string of cognizance that interfaces every person and societies around the globe. It is separated from his cognizance and therefore acts like a self-governing persona... <!

The Significance of the Last Stand :: History Historical essays

The Significance of the Last Stand I. Fictionalizing History Relating history of past to history of present [1] What do students of history make with the history they account? History is a story that never closes. The occasions of the present basically have just occurred before. Students of history attempt to understand the present by deconstructing the past. Just through examination of the past would one be able to comprehend the present. I played cattle rustlers and Indians as a kid. I would consistently fill the role of the cattle rustlers, and subsequently the ranchers consistently won. Toward the finish of my day's experience I went to my folks to let them know of my success against the Indians. I made sure to incorporate everything about the fight - from first charge to last saber stroke. History was made that day in my terrace with the green figurineâ€soldier on horsebackâ€whose destruction of the Indian enemy powers was both bold and good. [2] Past history is associated with the events of the present. History rehashes itself as present activity picks up hugeness from past occasions. President Clinton was as of late indicted. To date he is the principal President to get this not exactly noteworthy approval. As I would like to think, no basic repercussions came about. The main motivation behind why Clinton’s denunciation was significant was on the grounds that it was the principal such example in our nation’s history. On the off chance that President Nixon had not surrendered and had been indicted and expelled from office, the significance of Clinton’s reprimand would have showed up far less significant by and large. In light of the previous history of our country, the current history got critical. II. The Purpose of They Died With Their Boots On Diversion of American Cause 1876 [3] American film shows history as account. The recorded exemplary They Died With Their Boots On is an entertainment of the historical backdrop of General George Armstrong Custer’s life. This film adds to the effectively common legend of the Boy General. The film was discharged in 1941, when Germany, under Adolf Hitler, had control of â€Å"Fortress Europe, and took steps to end vote based system as the world knew it. The United States arranged to protect majority rule government in all out war. American fighters required a reason to bite the dust for.

Concert Report Essay Example for Free

Show Report Essay Postulation explanation: â€Å"This report will just talk about how Ludwig van Beethoven coordinated old and new melodic thoughts into his work, in this way making a capricious yet extraordinary and persuasive group of four, in light of the String Quartet No.9 in C, Op. 59, No.3 â€Å"Razumovsky† performed on the concert.† On 22nd Nov, Shanghai Quartet, one of the world’s principal chamber troupes, performed two melodic works. They are Ludwig van Beethoven’s String Quartet No.9 in C, Op. 59, No.3 â€Å"Razumovsky † and Antonin Dvorak’s Piano Quintet No. 2 out of A, B. 155, Op.82. In this report, I will concentrate on examining Beethoven’s work. 1Ludwig van Beethoven was a German arranger and musician. A urgent figure in the change between the Classical and Romantic time frame in Western workmanship music, he stays one of the most renowned and persuasive symbol for all arrangers. His most popular arrangements incorporate 9symphonies, 5 concertos for piano, 32 piano sonatas, and 16 string groups of four. 2The String Quartet No.9 in C, Op. 59, No.3 â€Å"Razumovsky† was written in around 1805-1806, when Beethoven was matured 35 and was at the stature of his profitability. It is known as the Razumovsky groups of four since it is appointed by a Russian tally of that name, who was the Tzars represetative in Vienna, a sharp novice musician and an affirmed music sweetheart. The group of four comprises of the accompanying four developments: 1. Moderately slow and even con moto Allegro vivace (C major) 2. Moderately slow and even con moto semi allegretto (A minor) 3. Menuetto (Grazioso) (C major) 4. Allegro molto (C major) I will concentrate on talking about how Beethoven incorporated old and new thoughts into the second, third and last developments The subsequent development carries us to a capricious region. Beethoven had a go at something radical and that is a whole Russian development. The intriguing kind of this development is sufficiently simple to hear in the expanded second interims of the initial violin tune, the incessant pizzicato backup of the cello wherein as though it emulates a people instrument, for example, guitar of harp and particularly in the long entries of static amicability. In reality, Beethoven is fruitful in conjuring up thisâ sense of geological separation that the development sounds fundamentally the same as the patriot motivation from decades later, by Romantic period writers like Dvorak or Borodin or Chaikovsky. In any case, the extraordinary adjustments and patient rationale of the tonal return double-cross it back to its time and writer. While the subsequent development gives a flighty inclination and goes for something new during that time, the third development motions the other way. During Beethoven’s center period, he would in general maintain a strategic distance from the Minuet and Trio arrangement and attempt to utilize the hearty Scherzo in his works; however here he comes back to the to some degree antiquated structure, in a development with a trademark musical thought process in the opening flawlessly traded between instruments. As though to finish the ‘old-fashioned’ mode, the Trios simple move character and rising closure songs in any event, take us back to the universe of early Haydn, who is a Classical Period arranger. Everything in this group of four has been a shock up until this point, and the last development is no special case. It is driven by a delicate coda to the third development that closes on a question mark. However, at that point, for goodness' sake, we are given the beginning of a conventional fugue, opened by the viola at an incensed beat. Again we have a feeling of going between the new and the old. Fugues were at this point an old, learned gadget; however Beethoven coordinates this one into the most outgoing individual and open of mind-sets as a showcase of clear virtuosity for the four soloists. Furthermore, when the four passages have been finished, there are no proper contrasts and Beethoven investigates rather the self important, musical modes, particularly that ostentatious festival of a tremendous C-significant space on every one of the four instruments. With everything taken into account, Beethoven is so effective in coordinating old melodic thoughts, originating from the Romantic or even the Classical time frame, and his new contemplations into this group of four. While I tuned in to it, it acts like a time machine, carrying us to go among old and new. No big surprise it is viewed as one the most otherworldly group of four created by Beethoven.

Lost Boys Essay Research Paper Lost BoysPart free essay sample

Lost Boys Essay, Research Paper Lost Male childs Section 1 The book Lost Boys was composed by James Garbarino to demo individuals why there is such a great amount of power with our male childs and how a portion of this can and ought to be kept away from with a little love. This book explains to all the grounds why kid twist out the way they do and how it very well may be halted. In the past decennary it is realize that power has been amazingly expansion in the enormous metropoliss and in littler towns as great truth be told? the period from the 1980? s to the 1990? s when the youngster murder rate expansion by 168 % ? ( p.7 ) individuals in the long run began to recognize something was mistaken. This high expansion of power with in male youngster is because of the reality the male childs everyplace are irate doing them to be more brutal than ever previously. In the greater part of these offenses the facts confirm that African Americans and Hispanic male childs are well on the way to be included, yet a greater amount of this power is get bringing down to circulate to the littler towns and influencing white children. Despite the fact that a bunch of guardians wear? t imagine that any kind of shot could take topographic point where their children are, the open doors are truly elevated that there is a male youngster at any school that is equipped for a shot. ? Practically all guardians send their childs to class with kids who are abused abandoned overlooked or relinquish. ? ( p.ix ) Numerous individuals accept that the ground that one male kid will go out and execute another male kid is just in light of the fact that? they were on medications or they were mishandled or even that they were simply raised in a family of criminals? ( p.10 ) so they will be one each piece great. Every one of these things do hold an incredible noteworthiness and do the chances of a male kid to go to offense, yet the ground is actually a cluster further so that. There is a kind of connection of levels that are represented in the book taking up to a male kid savage demise or in any event, going a sociopath. The beginning to this vicious passing and power Begins when the male youngster only a little darling premier conceived. In the event that an angel is non demonstrated the best possible love or neer feels cherished so there is a security that the darling will lose while turning up. For situation when an angel is left unattended and yelling for quite a long time the child will get increasingly irate and that will secure hid away inside, which in curve can close of a darling? s sole. As the child gets more established and very similar things keep on going on the male childs will turn angrier and harsh. Which so they need a way to coop with this choler and? power is a way for male childs to cover with those issues. ? ( p.46 ) They will other than make things, for example, ? ingest medications, deal, gorge themselves on sex, fall in packs or religions, and when no 1 is watching they will hide in a corner and such there thumbs. ? ( p.158 ) The book other than goes on about things like child abuse and about a child? s virtues and how when a child is misuse or brought us up in family units like previously portrayed so they really wear? Ts have any virtues to populate at that place life on. The last part of the book clarifies why with this material can be halted. Religion was perhaps the greatest thing. ? Otherworldliness and love can make full in the openings left in the account of a male kid? s life. ? ( p.155 ) The other thing was that childs simply require an association with do and fell adored and that will help them be more end arranged. ? We can rescue our boies? by connecting them to positive qualities and connections. ? ( P.149 ) Section 2 Well since this book was completely composed by the Authors contemplations, everything that has just been composed was what he thought and were his considerations that he had gotten from venturing out going to various male kid? s in jail and occurring out the stories of there lives. One of the huge things that the essayist intensified was the point at which a male youngster needed to turn up with out a male parent it drives the? male kid to be the grown-up male of the house. ? ( p.50 ) This idea of being a grown-up male leads the male youngster to hold to be defensive and fierce. Other than with out a male parent? for what reason should a male kid tune in to there mother, there non scared of her, ? ( p.57 ) so a male youngster? s female parent couldn? t stop the male kid? s from making anything. Something else that the Author needed to underline upon was the way that regardless of whether a male youngster is raised terrible? so in any event a teacher in school could demo them some affection and empathy? ( p.74 ) thus in any event the male kid will hold been given some adoration. In any event, being demo this little spot of adoration can modify a person. The last be thing the author thought was that by? adoring punishment? ( p.87 ) a male youngster would larn better what was directly from mistaken and help them to be progressively good in there life picks. Section 3 As I read this book I began encountering like these childs are only grimy criminals and should all be killed, yet as I read I change my assessment. I took in a group concerning why a significant number of these children wherever from 8 mature ages old to turn work powers at 35 mature ages old will execute individual or execute a rough demonstration. The anthem out of this book genuinely helped me hang on the various musings and connection of occasions that take topographic point in a kid life to take them to this life of offense. In the wake of perusing this book I genuinely wear? t perceive how any one can pass judgment on a male kid for making the things he does when they have been raised with no adoration or with no male parent and a female parent who is neer about. There was an expressing in the book? who the snake pit would they say they are to take a human life? ? ( p.121 ) yet when they have been raised that way so they really wear? T comprehend what is correct or erroneous. ? Societies and social orders set various standers for the profound quality of slaughtering. ? ( p.123 ) Other than I like the way that the essayist finished the book with the approaches to prevent this more remote power with in male childs, however there was something dismal that I understood: As all these male childs grow up they will simply keep up holding childs and do something very similar to there childs that was done to them, etc. So incense this pandemic will neer stop or travel off.

Human resource career field Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Human asset profession field - Research Paper Example Subsequently, a HR generalist needs to perform day by day assignments, for example, monitoring the different exercises in the HR office just as month to month announcing and yearly or semi-yearly interest in the evaluations and different errands. The components of the HR generalist work that intrigue me are to do with the feeling of being accountable for the HR work and the ringside see that the bids for employment as far as taking an interest in the enrollment, preparing and execution assessment of the representatives. The most energizing thing about the HR generalist work is that one can engage with the different exercises of the HR work and get an opportunity to apply a portion of the hypothetical information picked up during the training and furthermore get an opportunity to sharpen one’s aptitudes by rehearsing the specialty of HR the board. The element of the HR generalist’s work that doesn't intrigue me is the somewhat conventional nature of the activity when contrasted with the master job that has a more straightforward and profound contribution. The idea of the HR generalist work is with the end goal that it requires the individual to be proficient about the different exercises that are regularly perfor med during the lead of the activity. Consequently, I would be keen on assuming the job of an onlooker cum evaluator that is a piece of the HR generalist’s work. Further, what intrigues me about the HR generalist’s job is that the activity involves hands on contribution for specific perspectives and a backhanded association for different angles. The elements of enlistment and execution assessment are a portion of the capacities that I perform well. The capacities that I need extra preparing are the preparation and improvement work. The enrollment and preparing capacities intrigue me a great deal and I am certain that I can perform well in these capacities. I have a characteristic proclivity towards enrollment and execution assessment exercises since I have dedicated extensive time towards learning the suitable hypothesis in

The List List #35

The List List #35 at Andrew Scott Online, Lines from The Princess Bride That Double as Comments in a  Writing Workshop at Abe  Books, 13 Uses for Leftover Turkey from F. Scott Fiztgerald at GalleyCat,  Twitter Directories for Writers and  Publishing Professionals at  Flavorwire, 10 Great  Literary Late Bloomers at The Daily Beast, Top Film Adaptations of Classic  Books at PWxyz, 7 Writers Who Died Young at Fast Company, The Best Business  Books of 2012 at LitReactor, Etymological Evolution: 12 Words Altered by Historical Misuse at Publishers Weekly, The Most Expensive  Books of 2012 at Brain Pickings, The Best Art  Books of 2012 at Kelly OConnor McNees Blog, Women Writers Who Inspire at Jane Friedman, 5 Safe Places to Develop Your Next  Writing Project at Kirkus Reviews, Best Fiction Debuts of 2012 at Page Views, The Seasons Best Essay Collections at The Guardian, Writers with Other Careers at io9, The 11 GAME OF THRONES  Characters Least Likely to Sit on the Iron Throne at Mystery  Writing is Murder, Tips for  Writing During the Holidays at Mother Reader, 150 Ways to Give a Book at Omnivoracious, 10 Dos and Donts for Describing Your Book to a Pro at Read It First, 10 Upcoming Book to Movie Adaptations  (video, could embed) at Beyond the Margins, 7 Questions to Consider If You Plan on Self-Publishing a Book at LitReactor, 5 Reasons Why Hawkeye Might Be the Best Superhero Comic at Daily  Writing Tips, 15 Idioms for Periods of Time at LitStack, Dream  Character Mash-Ups and at The Atlantic, Portraits of Writers with Pets  (thats  Kurt Vonnegut with Pumpkin)

Construction project planning - Free Essay Example

2.1 Introduction This chapter will review the literature which has been used for this dissertation. A number of important aspects will be covered , including an overview of Construction Planning as well as determining what challenges are faced on a daily basis by construction planners. This chapter will also review research relating to Planning techniques used and software packages available within the Construction industry. 2.2 Construction Project Planning Project Management can be seen as the application of tools and techniques utilised to guide the use of resources towards achieving a n intricate task within the const raint s of time, cost and quality. From conception to completion, a mixture of these tools techniques is necessary to fit the task environment and project life cycle. The British Standard for project management (BS6079 1996) defined project management as, The planning, monitoring and control of all aspects of a project and the motivation of all those involved in it to achieve the project objectives on time and to the specified cost, quality and performance. The UK association of Project Management (APM) have produced a UK body of knowledge UK (BoK) which also provides a definition for project management as The planning, organisation, monitoring and control of all aspects of a project and the motivation of all involved to achieve the project objectives safely and within agreed time, cost and performance criteria. The project manager is the single point of responsibility for achieving this. Project Management as we know today has evolved in order to plan, coordinate and control the complex and diverse activities of modern industrial, commercial and management change projects. (Lock 2007) To allow for effective planning and control of projects, a requirement for systematic and logical methods should be applied along with proven techniques, thus ensuring a successful project outcome for all concerned parties, particularly the client. Without planning it is difficult to envisage the successful conclusion of any project or the effective control of time, money or resources. Planning is also essential in order to deal with construction risks and devise safe working methods. (Cooke 2008) Project Planning is defined as the establishment of a set of directions in sufficient detail to tell the project team exactly what must be done, when it must be done and what resources to use in order to produce the deliverables of the project successfully. (Zwikael 2008). Construction planning is an essential and challenging activity in the management and implementation of construction projects. It occupies the choice of technology, the description of work tasks, the estimation of the necessary resources and durations for individual tasks, and the identification of any interactions among the different work tasks. Hendrickson (1998) believes a good construction plan is the basis for developing the budget and the schedule for work. It is therefore common to adopt a conspicuous importance on either cost control or on schedule control as illustrated in Figure 2.1. Walker (2007) considers that by having a project schedule to work to and sticking to it, you will well be on your way to delivering successful projects. This would be dependant on effective communic ation and efficiency at all stages of the project and with an aim to reducing risk, time and cost. 2.3 The Construction Planner Construction project planning is receiving growing attention as the limitations of formal deterministic planning are becoming more widely recognised. (Winch, Kelsey 2004). There is growing concern over the failure of construction planning to achieve its goals in spite of the considerable resources allocated to it. Deficient planning techniques are commonly blamed for this state. (Laufer, Tucker, 1987) There has been considerable debate over the last decade or so on the effectiveness of construction project planning. However, there is remarkably little research into what construction project planners actually do. Laufer and Tucker provide a critique of construction planning. They protest that:- * the planning and evaluation of planning processes are non-existent * there is over-emphasis on critical path methods * planners lack construction experience * planners have poor information gathering methods * planning is control-oriented instead of action-oriented * Plans are been poorly presented with overly-complex information. In a subsequent paper (1994) Laufer and his colleagues look at the definition and allocation of planning work. They found that there was no clear system at work and planning was done in a multiplicity of ways. They call for the process to be properly co-ordinated by a single individual who will own the planning process and improve communication. Winch and Kelsey (2005) believe the specialist planner has the time to do the work but incomplete practical knowledge. The line manager has the practical knowledge but does not have the quality time to carry out the task. The specialist planner has better strategic decision-making skills than the short-term decision-making focus of the line manager. They then go on to say Line managers see the delegation of key decision-making to another as a threat to their position. These problems are confirmed in Laufer (1992) wider project management study and can result in: * The planner preparing a plan which has incomplete information and in-adequate decision making authority. * The line manager treating such plans as merely an irrelevant forecast prepared by another. Allen Smallwood (2008) believe Construction planners and the role they perform are little understood both within the construction industry and the wider environment where construction has a daily impact. Planning occupies a central position in the functions of the manager. His responsibilities may vary with organisational philosophy and contingency but planning invariably remains an essential ingredient of his duties. (Steiner, 1979). Much Research and Development effort has been made during the last three decades but progress with techniques has not removed the dissatisfaction with the application and results of construction planning (Choudhury 1981, Mason 1984, Morton 1983). Effective construction planning demands that it is carried out by competent and experienced personnel. While the estimator must remain in charge or pricing the work, most contracts, today, are too complex for the estimator to handle the technical content of pre-tender appraisal. It is here that the construction planner has a major function. 2.4 Planning Techniques Most planning techniques aim to express the work to be done, to a time-scale; some also include resources, and perhaps cost and value. In simple terms, they intend to help control time and cost. The other major factor in project control, quality, is controlled by its own family of control techniques; and quality is related to time and cost through the skill and judgement of the project management team. Neale (1989) believes the major components of planning techniques are: * Activities: literally, being busy, expending energy, consuming resources, taking time; in construction planning, this means a job to be done; for example preparing a drawing, an order to be places, a hole to be dug, bricks to be laid in a wall, a flow of water to be diverted. * Activity durations: the time required for the completion of each activity * Project time-scale: the time structure of the project; it is usual to give each week in the project a number (this makes calculation easier), and these then have to be related to calendar dates, holidays, etc. * Event: an occurrence at a specific point in time; for example, the granting of planning consent, of the start or end of a traffic diversion. * Work method: the plan must be expressed in some logical way, indicating the sequence of operations, and which activities and events are interrelated; this may be implicit (as with bar charts) or exlicit (in network analysis, where work method is usually called logic.) * Resources: often called the four Ms (men, machines, materials and money) but can include overheads (for example, site accommodation), and even such essentials as managerial skill. * Costs: what the work has or will cost, often derived directly from the unit costs of the individual resources. * Value: what has or can be earned by payment for work done derived from the bill of quantities, the estimate or an internal budget. The calculation of value-to-date can be used as an overall measure of project progress. 2.5 Four techniques are often used in construction planning * Bar charts, * Network analysis, * Line-of-balance * Linear programmes. 2.5.1 The bar chart/ Gantt Chart Drafting of a bar chart is popular because it produces results which are easy to understand and not too searching of the planner. Its use is limited to planning straightforward work with simple relationships between the activities. This graphical technique still forms the foundation for most resource scheduling. Its major drawback is that even minor deviations from it require extensive redrafting as a result making it more difficult to having to hand a contemporaneous bar chart that is a reliable indicator of future events. The main features of the bar chart are as follows: * The activities are listed on the vertical axis * Time is shown on the horizontal axis. This may be an appropriate time unit, such as months or days. * Each bar is divided horizontally into two, with the top half representing when the activity is planned to take place, and the bottom shared in, as proportions of the activity are completed. * A vertical movable marker line indicates the current time, thus enabling the observer to note if any activities are behind programme, and to what extent. Refer to Figure 2.2 for additional information. The format of the bar chart presumes that the end user (client) can involve the same judgment that was in the mind of the planner when he was compiling it. In highly repetitive or simple work it can be implied that the users will better understand the thought process of the planner. However as project complexity increases the users ability to monitor the project in relation to the programme is reduced unless it is understood: * What work is important to progress? * Of the activities currently behind programme what, if any, effect do they have on overall progress? * On the contrary, if most of the actual work is ahead of programme, does this mean that the current prediction is that the project will be complete in advance of the targeted completion date? The answer is definitely not an automatic yes. To provide an informed response, an understanding of the relationships between programme activities is crucial. Neale (1989) consider these deceivingly simple questions contradict issues which are at the heart of many construction disputes, namely considerations for extension of time. 2.5.2 Network Analysis Unlike a bar chart, activities are not shown on an axis of time. What the network portrays is the logical relationship between activities. Network analysis is a powerful, logical and analytical technique. It is most effective when used for complicated projects, especially those with external constraints and complex interrelationships. The technique is based on drawing the logical relationships between construction operations, and from an analysis of the relative durations, establishing which operations have the most crucial effect on the project duration. It can be drawn in a number of ways, the most well-known in the UK being the arrow diagram. The technique is sometimes known as the critical path method (CPM), and critical path analysis (CPA). A version which incorporates a statistical method for calculating the probability that a project will be completed on a specific date is called the programme evaluation and review technique. (PERT) The identification of a critical path focuses the attention of the individuals managing the project and highlights to clients and their advisors the tasks that require to be particularly well managed with regard to time. The duration of critical path represents the shortest duration in which the project can be completed. Delays to activities on the critical path transmit directly through to extend the project completion date. This provides advanced warning of the pending delay to completion and enables the contractor (or employer) to invoke recovery action at a useful point in time rather than waiting until it is manifestly obvious that the completion date is threatened. If the employer or his Architect/Engineer (A/E) instructs additional work which affects the activities on the critical path then the contractor has grounds for a claim for an extension of time. The term critical path is widely used in the construction industry; what is not fully appreciated is how easily the critical path can change. Network analysis has a good and inclusive logical basis, lends itself easily to computer processing, and can be used as an effective control tool. These exceptional characteristics are also known to be its principal weakness as it is easier for the planner to be drawn into a level of planning and analysis that is much to detailed and advanced for most construction projects. 2.5.3 Line of Balance Line of balance is a specialised technique used for repetitive work. It derived from the manufacturing industry and has been found to be effective in planning work truly repetitive. Examples of success applications include planning the construction of identical floors in high rise construction, and large housing developments. Line of balance has been found to be difficult to use on projects which have a high demand for trades or operations to construct each identical unit. The problems arise not from the technique itself, but from the difficult of showing all the information on one chart, particularly when using the technique to monitor progress. When used to plan, it can be an excellent means of relating resources, activity durations and the general pace of work on site. Neale (1989). Illingworth (1993) considers the line of balance approach has largely fallen out of use in todays industry due to the fact it was designed primarily for housing and did not readily provide clear visual appreciation of the situation at a glance. 2.5.4 Linear Programme (or time-chainage chart) Linear programming is a specialised technique for linear work. This is a basic tool of UK road contractors. Other successful applications include the construction of a large canal in a developing country, and it is especially useful in tunnelling. Illingworth (1993). Similar to line of balance, this is a simple two- dimensional graphical technique and can show clearly only a limited amount of information and limited degree of complexity. Figure 2.6 Linear Programme (Neale 1989) Linear Programme Activities (Neale 1989) 2.6 Which technique? The experienced planner in construction needs to be aware of the techniques available, together with the value of each, both in the planning analysis role and how then can be applied to give effective control and communication to management on site. Illingworth (1993). Like any other professional, the planner has to select the right tool for the job. To make the correct decision, it is therefore a requirement to examine what is wanted in a particular situation programme. Illingworth (1993) believes the main points of this choice are as follows: * Does the method aid initial analysis of the situation and especially in establishing the best sequence of events? * Are deficiencies in progress shown up as the work proceeds? * Can visiting management obtain and immediate view of the contract situation on arrival on site? * With the preponderance of subcontractors on site today, does the programme method give assistance in cash flow control? According to Illingworth, from these questions it is unlikely to be the answer to all desires. Therefore it is said to be better to consider the situation in two stages tender planning on the one hand and the operational planning after the contract has been won, on the other. 2.7 Planning Practice In order to explore further the reality of construction project planning semi-structured interviews were conducted between July and December 2000 with 18 experienced planners from five leading UK construction firms. Most of the planners interviewed were currently involved in planning at the tender stage including assembly and presentation of the tender documentation. About half of those were also involved at the tender/ pre-construction stage. Only a few were further involved during the site works. (Refer to figure 2.7). Generally, although a number of the interviewed planners had on-site experience the typical pattern is that a planner works either at the pre-tender, pre-execution stages or on site but not simultaneously. The exceptions tend to be where planners work for some time on a single large project. In such cases it may make sense (from the employers point of view) for their work to carry on to the execution stage. 2.8 Programming Considerations at the Tender Stage Upon receipt of tender documentation, the contractor will appoint human resources tasked with compiling a tender submission based upon the tender enquiry. One of the main individual in this team is the person accountable for producing the tender programme, the construction planner. Whether or not the contractual terms require a programme to be produced or not should be irrelevant at this stage. The tender programme is an important document produced by the contractor which is used for measuring many risk and cost related issues. In particular, the assessment of cost of the contractors time related preliminary items as drawn off the content of the tender programme. For example, the anticipated on site durations for different members of staff, periods of scaffold hire and duration for site accommodation are items that cannot be priced by the estimator without reference to the tender programme. When compiling the tender programme, the construction planner must incorporate the information supplied with the enquiry noting any specified constraints contained in either the contract bills, specification or drawings. Conflict between documents often exists and a view had to be taken on how to proceed. Clarification may be sought from the employer or his agents, assumptions made and stated along with the submission or the conflict may be ignored and the information that best suits the contractor is assumed without qualification or statement. It is accepted in the industry that many bids are won or lost on the programme duration alone. This happens frequently where a bill of quantities is being priced and the experienced contractors tend towards similar prime cost for similar items. On completion of reviewing tender documents, drawings, specification and bills, which may be typically done over a period of one or two weeks, the construction planner will establish the work scope which will be addressed in the creation of a tender programme. The main objective is to be aware of the specified period for construction. Additional to the completed programme should be a schedule of resources which corresponds with the programme and a series of method statements signifying construction techniques and equipment to be employed in carrying out the work. 2.9 Programming on Site When the contract is won, the site planning is equally important. It is usually at this point that the site manager will have his first chance to examine the methods on which the job was priced. What is important to recognise, at this point, is that planning must be seen as an addition to management. Thus the site manager must have the right to question the planning methods on which the contract was priced. To do so, site managers require the technical expertise to assess what has been put forward. In so doing, the manager concerned must, for his part, accept that if he wants to change the method from that in the priced tender, he must demonstrate that his alternative is obviously cheaper, or at least as cheap, as that priced in the tender submission. When final agreement has been reached, the planning function can be established on site and develop the final method to be adopted. This, in turn, will lead to the contract master programme and such subsidiary programmes as may be necessary. On completion of all methods being confirmed the construction planner continues to have a significant role on site. First, in developing control and short-term programmes for all organisations contributing to the contract under the main or managing contractor. Second, the construction planners cherished knowledge of how the work was originally planned makes him uniquely placed to examine the potential consequences of alterations to what has to be built. In this area he is a valuable source of information to the site quantity surveyor when assessing where possible contractural claims may arise. Today, with the ever increasing use of trade sub-contractors as well as specialist service contractors, the experienced construction planner has the option of either seeing the role as satisfying its own right, or as an essential ingredient of experience for becoming a successful site manager. Illingworth (1993). 2.10 Purpose of a Programme The values applicable to the mechanics of construction planning are similar whether you are a main contractor submitting a quotation to an employer, a sub-contractor quoting to the main contractor, or even a construction manager providing programme assist to an employer. Common principles apply when compiling a construction programme, that of methodical analysis. The contractors construction programme is an important common reference. It shows how the planner they have interpreted the contract documents and other information from which the statement of intent for construction is issued. As the key programme for the construction work, its content is of the utmost significance to all parties charged with handing over to the employer a building fit for purpose within the contract time stated. A well prepared programme is vital to every construction project. Many activities have to be cautiously defined and given a time scale, and it necessary not only to assemble and list the information but also to display it visually in terms of the contracts objectives and the calendar. The working sequences and the relationships between individual activities must be clearly conveyed in this visual presentation. The Chartered Institute of Building (2001). They consider the construction programme to be a statement of intended actions, which when properly used provides management with its plan of campaign. It should communicate with ease, providing the common reference for the timing of all activities related to the project. 2.11 Construction Planning Software An expert planner faced with the task of producing and analysing a network for a project containing only few activities will undoubtedly produce the fastest results by drawing a freehand arrow diagram and analysing it mentally. Lock (2007). He believes it is likely to take longer when using a computer because of the formalities needed to set up the new project files in the system and enter the data. David Arditi and Ann Rackas compiled a short report in May of 1986 with an aim in ascertaining the need for computer software to assist is construction planning and scheduling. This report concluded, the individual needs of a given construction company are the primary reasons for choosing a particular software package. For example, one of the participating general contractors basic requirements was to have a 40-character activity description field: a particularly individual need. They continued to suggest if a program is to survive the inevitable shakeout that occurs after the initial development and interest have peaked; it must offer the features and capacities that are required by the user. In addition, every effort should be made to make computers less mysterious and confusing as they will be dealing with the construction market. Today there are many planning software packages available to the construction industry. Asta Powerproject, Microsoft Project, Primavera, PERT Master to name a few. Each package is commonly suited to the individual needs of the planner. Some programs present a blank Gantt chart on the screen as soon as they are booted up, and it is apparent to the user that task data can be typed in immediately. Most programs allow the user/ planner to establish project durations, critical path network, allocate resources, assign costs to tasks and monitor progress throughout the project. As a result, most construction planning professionals use such packages daily. 2.12 Construction Planning Challenges Lock (2007) considers anyone planning a project of significant size will soon find out that there are a number of factors, both inside and outside the project organisation that can have an effect on the planners intentions. These are as follows: 2.12.1 External Factors All projects are subject to risk, many of which can have an enormous impact on plans. Lock (2007) deems the following are just four from the long catalogue of happenings that can be categorised as Acts of God: * An earthquake devastates a project organisations headquarters. * A hurricane and flood put a project site under a metre of water and delay the start or ruin the work in progress. * An influenza epidemic puts half the project workforce out of action. (Swine flu outbreak 2008 recorded thousands of people off work for over 5 days.) * The project manager (a keen golfer) is struck by lightning. The national government can play an important part on the smooth running of a project. E.g. the project could be government-funded and is cancelled or abandoned through a political decision. Lock (2007) also considers less immediate concerns which are the wider and longer-term economic consequences of government policy leading to downscaling of projects, delays and cancellations in all sectors of industry. Decisions made outside the project team can also have an affect on many characteristics of planning. E.g. a decision is made at directorate level to carry out a project in a different company within the group from that initially anticipated or a strategic decision is made to cut short all new staff recruitment resulting in a lower number of available resources formerly expected to be available for projects. 2.12.2 Working Factors Lock (2007) These are items which are likely to affect the project team on a daily basis. Examples include availability of resources, materials etc. People are believed to be a construction organisations greatest resource. Construction operations depend on the knowledge and skills of people planning and executing the work. Muir (2005.) Research has been carried out to reveal that the construction industry is typically viewed as being one of the least attractive industries in which to work. Safety plays an important part in the running of a project. Construction by nature is unsurprisingly dangerous with a high degree of hazard and risk. The Health Safety Executive believe each year: * Over 1 million injuries and 2.3 million cases of ill-health are experienced by workers; * Around 40 million working days are to lost; and * Over 25000 individuals are forced to give up work because of injury or ill health. These cost British employers on average 3.3 to 6.5 billion each year. Most organisations are oblivious of these figures and are often astonished to find out what the actual costs are. Recent HSE Examples (2009) * An injury to a worker using an unguarded drill cost a small engineering company 45,000. And that was not all. The managing director was prosecuted from which two employees had to be made redundant to keep the company afloat. * At the other end of the scale the Piper Alpha explosion killed 167 people and incurred estimated costs of over 2 billion. * Accidents in construction can account for 3 6 % of total project costs. 2.12.3 Contribution of effective Planning Effective Planning and scheduling influences the results of a project as is promotes well-organised working. Personnel who are not trying continually to overcome crises caused by bad planning can dedicate more time to achieving high quality standards. A well-planned project stands more chance of being completed on time and on budget. 2.13 Chapter Summary Description Author Source To allow for effective planning and control of projects, a requirement for systematic and logical methods should be applied along with proven techniques. Cooke 2008 Improving Construction planning through 4d Planning Project Planning is defined as the establishment of a set of directions Zwikael 2008 Critical Planning Processes in Construction Projects A good Construction plan is the basis for developing the budget and the schedule for work Henrickson 1998 Construction Planning Techniques Having a project schedule to work to and sticking to it, you will be well on your way to delivering successful projects Walker 2007 Project Management in Construction, (5th edition) Construction Planners and the olr they perform are little understood both within the Construction industry and the wider environment Allan Smallwood 2008 Improving Construction planning through 4d Planning Major Components of planning techniques are: Activities, Activity durations, Project time-scale, Event, Work method, Resources, Costs Value Neale 1989 Engineering Management. Construction Planning Four techniques often used; Bar chart, Network analysis, Line-of-balance, Linear programmes Neale 1989 Engineering Management. Construction Planning Experienced planner in construction needs to be aware of the techniques available Illingworth 1993 Construction Methods and Planning Likely to take longer when using construction planning software Lock 2007 Project Management, 9th edition, Planning a project of significant size will soon find that there a number of factors, both inside and out Lock 2007 Project Management, 9th edition, 3.0 Methodology 3.1 Introduction The aim of this study is to analyse current planning techniques used within the construction industry and determine what influence the construction programme has in terms of project success. In order to achieve this aim, sufficient research has to be carried out. Research design is an action plan for getting from here to there, where here may be defined as the initial set of questions to be answered, and there is some set of conclusion (answers) about these questions. (Naoum 2007.) Between here and there may be a found number of major steps, including the collection of analysis of relevant data. (Yin 1994.) Developing a successful strategy was an important step towards the collection of key research information. 3.2 Research Strategy Research is the systematic and rigorous process of enquiry which aims to describe phenomena and to develop and test explanatory concepts and theories. Ultimately it aims to contribute to a scientific body of knowledge. (Bowling 2009.) There are two types of research strategies, namely, quantitative research and qualitative research. Deciding on which type of research to follow, depends on the purpose of the dissertation and the type and availability of information which is required. (Naoum 2007.) In summary, quantitative research methods include the collection of data through questionnaires while qualitative techniques involve carrying out interviews to receive feedback on a specific subject area. (E.g. Construction Planning.). It is vital that in order carry out accurate research a precise and suitable methodology must be understood prior to reporting results. The following sub-sections will discuss and appraise both qualitative and quantitative research methods. 3.2 Quantitative Research Quantitative research, by definition, deals with quantities and relationships between attributes; it involves the collection and analysis of highly structured data in the positivist tradition. Gerrish and Lacey (2006) describe quantitative research as a broad umbrella term for research that uses techniques to gather evidence. Quantitative research is appropriate in situations in which there is pre-existing knowledge, which will permit the use of standardised date collection methods (e.g. the survey questionnaire.), and in which it is aimed to document prevalence or test hypotheses. (Bowling 2009). Quantitative research is often conceptualised by its practitioners as having a logical structure in which theories determine the problems to which researchers address themselves in the form of hypotheses derived from general theories. These hypotheses are in variably assumed to take the form of expectations about likely causal connections between the concepts which are the constituent elements of the hypotheses. (Bryman, 1996). Quantitative data is, therefore, not abstract, they are hard and reliable; they are measurements of tangible, countable, sensate features of the world (Bouma and Atkinson, 1995.) (Bryman, 1996.) Naoum (2007) believes Quantitative research is selected under the following circumstances: * When you want to find facts about a concept, a question or an attribute. * When you want to collect factual evidence and study the relationship between these facts in order to test a particular theory or hypothesis. In quantitative studies one uses a theory deductively and places it towards the beginning of the plan for a study: the objective is to test or verify a theory, rather than develop it. One consequently begins the study advancing a theory, collects data to test it, and reflects on whether the theory was confirmed or unconfirmed by the results in the study. (Naoum, 2007.) The theory becomes a framework for the entire study, an organising model for the research questions or hypotheses and for the date collection procedure (Creswell, 1994.) 3.3 Qualitative Research Qualitative Research is a method of naturalistic enquiry which is usually less obtrusive that quantitative investigations and does not manipulate a research setting. It aims to study people in their natural social settings and to collect naturally occurring data. (Bowling, 2007.) Qualitative research is subjective in nature. It can refer to research about persons lives, lived experiences, behaviours, emotions, and feelings as well as about organisational functioning, social movements, cultural phenomena, and interactions between nations. Some of the data may be quantified as with census or background information about the persons or objects studied, but the bulk of the analysis is interpretative. (Strauss, 1998). Creswell (1998) describes qualitative research as: An enquiry process of understanding based on distinct methodological traditions of inquiry that explore a social or human problem. The researcher builds a complex, holistic picture, analyses words, reports detailed views of informants and conducts the study in a natural setting In speaking about qualitative analysis, we are referring not to the quantifying qualitative data but rather to a non mathematical process of interpretation, carried out for the purpose of discovering concepts and relationships in raw data and organising these into theoretical explanatory scheme.(Strauss, 1998). There are many valid reasons for doing qualitative research. One reason is preferences and/ or experience of the researchers. Some persons are more orientated and temperamentally suited to doing this type of work. Some researches come from some disciplines that traditionally make use of qualitative methods. Another reason for chosing qualitative research methods is the nature of the research problem. (Strauss, 1998.) Qualitative techniques have a wide range of applications in health care research. Qualitative research methods have been commonly used in research documenting the experience of chronic illness. (Bowling, 2007.) Qualitative methods can be used to explore substantive areas which little is known or about which much is know to gain novel understandings. (Stern, 1980.) In addition, qualitative methods can be used to obtain the intricate details about phenomena such as feelings, thought processes, and emotions that a difficult to learn about through more conventional research methods. Strauss (1998) considers, there are three major components of qualitative research. First, there are the data, which can come from various sources such as interviews, observations, documents, records, and films. Second, there are the procedures that researchers can use to interpret and organise the data. Other procedures are part of the analytic process. These include non-statistical sampling, the writing of memos, and diagramming. Written and verbal reports make up the third component. These may be presented in scientific journals, in talks (e.g. conferences), or in books. While the value of qualitative research is that it studies people in their natural settings and is arguably less reactive than quantitative methods, there is still a great deal of scope for reactive effects. Bowling (2007), believes the researcher should be honest about his or her theoretical perspective and/ or values at the outset, the research should be conducted in an explicit and systematic way in relation to the design, data collection, analysis and interpretation and the investigator must reduce sources of errors or bias. 3.4 Quantitative and Qualitative Comparison The difference between quantitative and qualitative research is rather like the difference between counting the shape and types of the design of a sample of green houses as against living in them and feeling the environment. The difference between each one may be somehow quantifiable but such measurements will not convey the importance and the special impact of some over others. (Naoum, 2007.) Quantitative Qualitative 1 Role Fact-finding based on evidence or records Attitude, measurement based on opinions, views and perceptions measurement 2 Relationship between researcher and subject Distant Close 3 Scope of Findings Nomothetic Idiographic 4 Relationship between theory/ concepts and research Testing/ confirmation Emergent/ development 5 Nature of data Hard and reliable Rich and deep Fig 3.2 Some differences between quantitative and qualitative research (Naoum, 2007.) Quantitative and qualitative research can frequently be found together in particular substantive areas in the social sciences, be it delinquency, classroom studies, or whatever. By and large, the two research traditions can be viewed as contributing to the understanding of different aspects of the phenomenon in question. (Bryman, 1996) 3.5 Approaches to Research Data Collection When carrying out research, the approach to be adopted depends on the nature of the investigation and the type of data and information that are required and available. These can be classified as fieldwork (primary data collection) and desk study (secondary data collection). Primary data collection is collected first hand by the person carrying out the research and can be associated with three practical approaches. (Naoum, 2007.) * The survey approach (descriptive or logical study.) * The case study approach (in depth analysis of subject) * The problem solving approach (review situation, problem identification and evaluation.) Secondary data is collected from other sources that include books and academic journals. This information can be stored in statistical or descriptive format. Secondary information has some distinct advantages over primary date collection effort. (Stewart, 1993). * Less expensive to use secondary data * More cost effective * Provide a useful comparison tool 3.6 Methods of Research Data Collection In order to achieve the aim of this dissertation both primary and secondary data were used. The Literature review contains secondary data taken from various journals and books. Primary data was collected during the questionnaire processes and semi-structured interview process of the dissertation. Naoum (2007), considers semi-structured interviews to be more formal that the unstructured interview in that there is a number of specific topics around which to build the interview. Various journals accessed online through the International Journal of Project Management have proved to be valuable when researching past and current planning techniques. The journals have been historic and up to date as a result providing a meaningful comparison between past and present techniques. A number of books have used to provide me with a background to Construction Planning and where it started, pointing out various techniques and practices used by professionals on a daily basis. The research will be conducted using a mixture of questionnaires and semi-structured interviews. The questionnaire is one of the most frequently used methods of data collection in evaluation research. It can be used to provide the main source of data in a study, as in the case of consumer satisfaction surveys of service users, or it can be a useful source of supplementary data. (Clarke, 1999). An electronic questionnaire was the selected technique used to gather key information in order to achieve the main aim and objective of the dissertation. Construction professionals, mainly Construction Planners and Project Managers were invited to complete questionnaires. Possible respondents were approached in a professional manner via email in which I requested their participation in completing an attached questionnaire. The email highlighted the dissertation topic pointing out the main aim and objective of the research. Recipients were ensured that all information provided will be treated with strict confidence and would remain anonymous. The covering letter can be seen in APPENDIX The questionnaire was kept short and took the respondent no longer than a few minutes to complete. This was deliberately done to make sure the respondent would not be discouraged from completing the questionnaire. Naoum (2007) considers questionnaires hold the following advantages: * Economy Relatively high validity of results because of their wide geographic coverage. * Speed If administered properly, the majority of returns will be received within two weeks. * Consultation The respondent is allowed to answer the questions in their own time and comfort. Interviews were held where possible, at the convenience of the interviewee. Neither candidate had access to information that the other party had given. The transcript for the interview was based on the electronic questionnaire and can be found in APPENDIX. The interview was semi structured, the basis for a semi-structured interview was to provide a high proportion of answers that are comparable and to provide the opportunity to probe further for information (Dane, 1990). Naoum (2007) considers in the semi-structured interview, the interviewer has a great deal of freedom to probe various areas and to raise specific queries during the course of the interview. Recipients where carefully chosen, the majority of which where contacts gained through the authors work experience as a Construction Planner along with various networking events attended by the author, such as; Chartered Institute of Building (CIOB) seminars/ presentations on a variety of Construction topics. Although in the appendix they are presented together, it is important to stress that the interviews were held separately. The results of the interview and the subsequent analysis can be found in Chapter 4. 3.7 Ethical Issues Ethics is a believed to be a major concern in all research projects. It is possible that the research can cause emotional distress to the data subjects. The importance of ethics cannot be undervalued and must not be ignored. (Bryman, 1996). Ethics identify the consequences early on allowing the author to take required measures to alleviate these implications. People who agree to take part in research studies need protection in relation to their privacy and protection from manipulation by the researcher. (Bowling, 2007). Also required in the protection of the aura of trust on which society and the research community depend; and the good reputation of research requires preservation (Webb, 1966.) All recipients related with the completion of the questionnaires were contacted prior to completion. During initial contact the respondent was informed of; why the information was required, why they were selected to participate and what the information would be used for. The author ensured at all times, the participant was aware that all information received was strictly for the purpose of the research and the findings will be reported in an accurate, responsible manner. Summary of Methodology The decision to use a mixture of qualitative and quantitative research allows the author to take full advantage of the accuracy of results in order to complete the aim and objectives of this dissertation. Having identified the above as being the most efficient and successful means of data collection, the author will explain the findings and results along with suitable conclusions in Chapter 5.

The Health and Wellness Survey Essay - 814 Words

By living in such a technically advanced society, I feel there are several things that account towards the decisions we make every day in regards to our health. To further describe the claim that we live in a technically advanced society, we are surrounded by images that are often directed towards health and image. Covers of magazines, famous people, and athletes are all images that most people strive to become or look like. Personally, growing up I always aspired to become a professional hockey player. Admiring my favorite hockey players in the NHL, I always perceived them to being the healthiest people on the planet. In many respects, I was not that far off. Professional athletes, pampered by the best medical care and nutritional advice,†¦show more content†¦Coaching is important, along with structured practices and skill instruction. It is times like pond hockey where there isn’t a coach there to yell at you, when you really learn to appreciate the sport and exerci se in general. Though reality struck, and my professional hockey dreams were tainted, maintaining good health is still something I strive to achieve for my well being, and performance at the level of hockey that I do play still today. On the other hand, in terms of the Hollywood hot-pink image that the media delivers to us, people generally feel pressured to look or live like famous people. Though it does not apply to me, or most people I know, there is always a minimal amount of influence or pressure that can affect my decisions with health. I believe that the people that surround us play some sort of role on the decisions we make. If a friend of mine is getting in really good shape and taking a protein supplement, my questioning of what type of protein he’s taking is proof that I strive to perform, or train like him. Another example is how advertisements can use beautiful people to claim that they used their product in order to gain customers whom want to appear like that b eautiful person. These few examples are things that have impacted my mental model of health and decisions that I make about health. Reflecting on the wellness and health survey, many of my answers to questions were answered based on experience. For example, IShow MoreRelatedWellness Plan1575 Words   |  7 PagesDeveloping an Organizational Employee Wellness Plan Sample Outline This outline is intended to be a starting point to guide state agencies in developing their own agency-specific wellness plan. The provided outline addresses specific points to consider in developing the agency plan, but each agency will need to add additional content to define adequately what and how each activity will be implemented in the agency. While the outline is presented in this format for ease of reading and brevityRead MoreWellness Programs Affecting The Workplace1238 Words   |  5 PagesWellness Programs Affecting the Workplace Company wellness programs may be the answer to help company managers and employees live an overall better lifestyle. Wellness â€Å"is understood to reach physical health to encompass a more holistic mind-body approach that also considers good mental and emotional health† (Walsh, 2015). The purpose of the wellness program is to go further than the physical appearance and help from the inside out. Helping the inside of the body to become healthier is more beneficiallyRead MoreWellness Programs Can Be Provided By Employers As A Service Under Discretionary Benefits1673 Words   |  7 PagesWellness programs can be provided by employers as a service under discretionary benefits. Employers began implementing wellness programs to promote and maintain employees’ physical and psychological health in the 1980s (Martocchio, 2014). There are several different wellness programs that companies may provide to their employees such as stress reduction, nutrition and weight loss, ex ercise and fitness activities, and health-screening programs (Martocchio, 2014). According to the survey conductedRead MorePoor Health Habits Of Employees1383 Words   |  6 Pages INTRODUCTION The issue of poor health habits of employees has resulted in growing rates of chronic disease, together with the rising cost of health benefits, increased absenteeism and reduction in productivity (Mujtaba, 2013). The decline in workforce health also adds to increased health related expenses. This includes both direct medical payments and indirect expenses resulting from absenteeism or presenteeism (loss of productivity when employees not fully functioning because of illness or medicalRead MoreEvolution Of The Wellness Program940 Words   |  4 PagesThe wellness programs that many companies now seem to be interested in is nothing new, as companies have known for many years that a healthy and fit employee is a more productive employee. This company interest in fit employees can be traced back to the time right after World War II. After WWII a few companies decided to construct gyms and staffed them with instructors to help in the promotion of fitness (Sparling 2010), (Chenoweth 20 11), (Miller 2014). These gyms were perks typically for upper managementRead MoreMental Illness Is Defined At The Federal Level1130 Words   |  5 Pagescause any serious impairment. Statistics from 2014 show that there were almost 10 million Americans aged 18 or older who were suffering from a severe mental illness2. Approximately 41% of all adults in the United States suffering from a mental health condition received services over the past year; however that number jumps to 62.9% for individuals suffering from a severe mental illness. There are many consequences associated with a lack of treatment for individuals with severe mental illnessesRead MoreInfluence Of Professional Athletes On The Lifestyle Choices Of University Of Michigan1503 Words   |  7 Pagespolitics, health and wellness, and product use. A Qualtrics survey was distributed to students via social media, email, and flyers; seventy-seven responses were analyzed. The results indicated that, overall, professional athletes have a relatively small influence on the lifestyle choices of U-M undergraduates. There is insufficient evidence to suggest that the mean difference between the level of influen ce professional athletes have on males and females in the areas of politics and health and wellnessRead MoreAnalysis Of The Wellness Program1201 Words   |  5 PagesAs companies look for ways to help in lowering the cost that is spent on health care for their employees, they also are looking for ways to increase the longevity of their most skilled and knowledgeable employees, the aging workforce. Companies have identified the need for a wellness program to help in this endeavor. Companies also need a means to identify the performance and cost of this wellness program. Just as organizations have used the fundamental concepts of cost measurement and recognitionRead MoreWorkplace Health And Wellness Programs Essay730 Words   |  3 Pages(2013) examined corporate wellness programs specifically within the American workplace. Texas and Florida are the two states with the highest percentage of individuals under the age of 65 without health insurance because the cost is too high. As a r esult, many employers are implementing workplace health and wellness programs in hopes to lower the costs of their health care plans. An average cost Mujtaba et. al (2013) has found for operating a workplace health and wellness programs per participantRead MoreHSM 541 Week 6 You Decide Essay851 Words   |  4 Pageshas opened a wellness center that offers a comprehensive array of preventive and wellness services to the community. Wellness centers can offer services that are very useful and convenient to the community. Some of these services are skin care and body services, which include fitness services, personal training and nutrition consulting, chiropractic, holistic medicine, and acupuncture. (http://www.salonbuilder.com/info/wellness-centers.html) I also think we should open a wellness center that offers

The Macroeconomic Forces And Stock Prices Finance Essay - Free Essay Example

Sample details Pages: 28 Words: 8501 Downloads: 3 Date added: 2017/06/26 Category Economics Essay Type Analytical essay Did you like this example? The study examines the influence of a selective set of macroeconomic forces on stock market prices in Bangladesh. The Dhaka Stock Exchange All-Share Index (DSI) is used to represent the prices in the stock market while deposit interest rates, exchange rates, consumer price index (CPI), crude oil prices and broad money supply (M2) are selected to represent the macroeconomic variables affecting the stock prices. Using monthly data from 1992m1-2011m6, several time-series techniques were used which include Cointegration, Vector Error Correction Model (VECM), Impulse Response Functions (IRF) and Variance Decompositions (VDC). Don’t waste time! Our writers will create an original "The Macroeconomic Forces And Stock Prices Finance Essay" essay for you Create order Cointegration analysis, along with the VECM, suggests that interest rates, crude oil prices and money supply are negatively related to stock prices, exchange rates are positively related to stock prices, and CPI is insignificant in influencing the stock prices, in the long-run. Both the IRF and VDC suggest that shocks to macroeconomic variables explain a small proportion of the forecast variance error of the DSI, but these effects persist for a long period. Stock markets, where shares and bonds are traded and issued through exchanges and over-the-counter markets, form an integral part of the financial markets and are important for the development of an economy. Stock markets contribute to the economy by providing businesses with access to capital and investors with opportunities for capital gains. Research has shown that stock market development contributes significantly to the economic growth of a country (Levine and Zervos, 1996)  [1]  . Since stock market prices are subject to fluctuations, it is essential to determine the forces influencing the stock prices for efficient functioning and development of the stock market and country. There are many reasons for there to be an interest to determine the forces influencing the stock prices. Firstly, this may interest investors, so they can forecast stock prices accurately to make apt decisions regarding their stock portfolio for maximum gains. Secondly, businesses may find this useful; as stock price is an indication of the financial health of the companies, businesses may be interested to determine the future stock prices as it will allow them to assess their ability to issue bonds or obtain financing in the future. Thirdly, policymakers and economists may find this useful, so they can predict stock prices as prices of stocks reflect changes in economic activity in the long run (Cheung and Lai, 1999). Stock prices are expected discounted dividends, i.e. discounted value of future cash flows derived f rom a stock. Theoretically, stock prices are modelled as: where P refers to the stock price, CF refers to the cash flows derived from a stock and R refers to the discount rate. Hence, any forces influencing the discount rates, R, or expected future cash flows derived from a stock, CF, will affect the stock prices. However, theoretical models do not provide an identity of these exogenous economic forces (Bodhurta et al., 1989), i.e. do not identify the economic forces influencing the stock prices. Macroeconomic variables are potential candidates for these forces because macroeconomic changes simultaneously affect many firms cash flows and may influence the risk-adjusted discount rate (Shiller, 1981; Leroy and Porter, 1981; Flannery and Protopapadakis, 2002), or simply, discount rate. The purpose of the dissertation will be to try to find a long-term relationship between macroeconomic forces and stock prices for an emerging stock market in a less developed country. The dissertat ion will focus on an emerging market because the behaviour of stock prices in these countries is not tied to economic fundamentals (Gunasekarage et al., 2004) and, therefore, makes it difficult to predict the forces affecting the stock prices. Moreover, studies on emerging markets have shown that returns and risks in these markets are higher relative to those in stock markets in developed countries (Harvey, 1995a). It will be interesting to determine what factors cause these higher risks and returns and study the relationship between macroeconomic forces and stock prices in emerging stock markets. The dissertation will study the relationship between a selective set of macroeconomic variables and stock prices in the Bangladesh stock market. The Bangladesh stock market is an established capital market and deemed as the next Asian success story by JPMorgan Chase, Citigroup, and Merrill Lynch (Bloomberg, 1997); its stocks have performed well in recent years and prices gained nearly 5 0% over one year in 2010 (2nd highest in the world after Sri Lanka)  [2]  . However, the stock market is still developing and the analysis made in this study can, therefore, be used to shed light on other emerging stock markets. For the purpose of the study, the stocks from the Dhaka Stock Exchange (DSE), the primary stock market of Bangladesh, will be considered as it covers majority of the stocks in the country and will allow a more comprehensive analysis. The DSE uses three share price indices Dhaka All-Share Price Index (DSI), Dhaka General Price (DGEN) Index, and DSE-20  [3]  . The DSI will be used as a proxy for stock prices for the study as it covers all the stocks including Z-category shares. The study will cover the last two decades since the DSE became very active during this period due to developments in the capital markets of Bangladesh, such as exemption of tax dividends on stock market investments to increase stock trades, off-loading of shares of governmen t-owned companies, allowing investment of black money  [4]  into the capital market, etc. The next section reviews the existing literature on the topic and discusses the methodologies used in the papers. Section 3 describes the macroeconomic variables used in the study along with their hypothesized relationship with the stock prices. Section 4 discusses the sources from which the data were collected and provides descriptive statistics of the data. Section 5 explains the econometric model and methodologies used in the study. Section 6 provides the empirical results with interpretations. Section 7 concludes the paper and offers further remarks. Literature Review Chen, Roll and Ross (1986) (CRR) was one of the pioneer papers that tried to identify the macroeconomic variables that influenced stock returns and determined this relationship for the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE). They used a regression framework to test whether macroeconomic innovations such as monthly growth in industrial production, expected inflation and unexpected inflation  [5]  , and an interest rate spread variable have systematic influences on stock market returns. To this end, they estimated a Vector Autoregression (VAR) model of lagged stock market returns and used the residuals of the macroeconomic variables as the unanticipated innovations in the macroeconomic factors. They found that industrial production, changes in the risk premium, term structure, unexpected inflation and changes in anticipated inflation were significant in explaining expected stock returns in the NYSE. They also used value-weighted NYSE index as a macroeconomic variable, and found that it h as an insignificant influence on expected returns. Poon and Taylor (1991) used the dataset for the London stock market and the same macroeconomic variables as CRR and found that no significant relationship exists between stock returns and the macroeconomic variables. Diacogiannis (1986) and Cheng (1995), similarly, determined that there is no conclusive result regarding the relationship of relevant macroeconomic variables with the capital market of the U.K. Gà ¼nsel and Çukur (2007), using the same variables as CRR, looked into different industries in the U.K. and found that macroeconomic factors have a significant effect in the U.K. stock exchange market; however, each factor affect different industry in different manner. Further work on the topic has extended the analysis by incorporating different framework/setting and conducted the study using different econometric methods. Bodhurta et al. (1989) undertook an analysis for seven major industrial countries United State s, Japan, United Kingdom, Germany, France, Canada and Australia. They chose the same explanatory variables as CRR, and to incorporate an international setting, introduced deviations from Purchasing Power Parity, typified as real exchange rate changes, and interest rate parity. They were able to demonstrate that several of the international analogs of the CRR domestic variables stock index returns, industrial production, bond returns, unanticipated inflation and oil prices are significant in explaining the average stock returns in the cross-section sample. Mukherjee and Naka (1995) used a different methodology to determine the relationship between macroeconomic forces and stock returns. They employed Johansens (1991) Vector Error Correction Model (VECM) to examine whether relevant macroeconomic variables and the Tokyo Stock Exchange (TSE) index were cointegrated for the period 1971-1990. They found that a cointegrating relationship exists and that stock prices contributed to the relation. The relationships between stock index and exchange rates, inflation, money supply, and industrial production were as hypothesized and the same as existing literature. However, the results for the interest rates were mixed. The relation between the TSE and long-term government bond rate (LGB) was negative, but positive between the TSE and call money rate; they state that this may be because the LGB is a better proxy for risk-free rate in the basic stock pricing model. Nasseh and Strauss (2000) used Johansens cointegration procedure and variance decompositions method for 1962-1995 for six European countries: France, Germany, Italy, The Netherlands, Switzerland and the U.K, and found support for the existence of a long-run cointegrating relationship between stock prices and domestic interest rates, consumer prices, real industrial production, business surveys of manufacturing orders, and International (German) movements in stock prices. There have only been a few studies f ocused on the emerging markets in less developed countries. Wongbangpo and Sharma (2004) studied the stock markets of the five ASEAN countries, namely Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Philippines and Thailand, and their relationship with select macroeconomic variables. They found that in the long-run, the stock prices were positively related to growth in output, and negatively to the aggregate price level. A negative long-run relationship between stock prices and interest rates was observed in Philippines, Singapore and Thailand. High inflation in Indonesia and Philippines was found to influence the long-run negative relation between stock prices and the money supply, while the money growth in Malaysia, Singapore and Thailand was found to be responsible for the positive effect on their stock markets. Lastly, the exchange rate variable was positively related to stock prices in Indonesia, Malaysia, and Philippines, which can be explained by the high competition in the world exporting m arket. Mookerjee and Yu (1997) and Maysami and Koh (2000) studied the Singapore stock market and found that changes in Singapores stock market levels form a cointegrating relationship with changes in price levels, money supply, short- and long-term interest rates. Gunasekarage et al. (2004) examined the long-run relationship between macroeconomic factors and all-share price index from 1985-2001 for the Colombo Stock Exchange and found that the consumer price index and treasury bill rate coefficients are significant and negative, money supply coefficient is significant and positive, but exchange rate had no influence on share price indices. Frimpong (2009) conducted a study on Ghana for the period 1990-2006 and found that exchange rates are positively related to the Ghana Stock Exchange All-Share index (GSE), and inflation and money supply are negatively related to the GSE. Rahman and Moazzem (2011) attempted to identify the causal relationship between changes in the DSE stock pri ces and the regulatory decisions taken by the Securities and Exchange Commission. The results suggested that market price fluctuations were positively and significantly influenced by these decisions, a result that was opposite of what was expected. However, the methodology suffers from endogeneity as the number of decisions taken may be due to high price indices in the given month. Macroeconomic Forces and the DSI: Hypothesized Relations This section covers the macroeconomic variables chosen for the study and their hypothesized relationships with the DSI. The variables chosen were based on financial theory and established literature deposit interest rates (IR), exchange rate (EXR), consumer price index (CPI), crude oil prices (OP) and broad money supply (M2)  [6]  . The intuition behind the relationship between deposit interest rates and stock prices forms the basis for the hypothesized negative relationship between the variables. Interest rates represent the opportunity cost for investors in the equity markets (Asprem, 1989). An increase in the interest rates results in high opportunity cost of holding cash and leads investors to substitute between stocks and other interest-bearing securities. Moreover, the interest rates, through their effect on the risk-free rate, will lead to an increase in the discount rate (Mukherjee and Naka, 1995). Thus, stock prices are expected to fall and vice versa. Solnik (1 987), Soenen and Hennigar (1988) and Ma and Kao (1990), among others, indicate that exchange rates play a significant role in affecting the performance of a stock market. For this study, a positive relation is hypothesized between exchange rate (against the U.S. dollar)  [7]  and stock prices based on the classic theory of Hume (1752). As goods in the Bangladesh economy become relatively more expensive in the international market due to an appreciation of the Bangladeshi Taka (falling exchange rate) against the U.S. dollar, demand for exports reduce and, at the same time, demand for imports increase, thus leading to lower Taka-denominated cash flows into the Bangladeshi companies and hence, lowering stock prices. This is evident from the theoretical model of stock valuation. The opposite should hold when the Bangladeshi Taka depreciates against the U.S. Dollar. The relation between consumer price index and stock returns has been generally theorized to be negative (Fama and Sc hwert, 1977). A decrease in consumer price index decreases the nominal risk-free rate and lowers the discount rate in the stock valuation model, leading to higher stock prices. Mukherjee and Naka (1995) suggest that the effect of a lower discount rate would be neutralized if cash flows decrease with the CPI. DeFina (1991), however, documents that cash flows do not decrease at the same rate as inflation or CPI, and, hence, it is expected that the fall in discount rate will lead to higher stock prices. It must be noted though, that prices, in general, may be subject to greater fluctuations in the developing countries, which may render the relationship insignificant. Thus, a negative or insignificant relationship is expected between CPI and stock prices. Crude oil prices are used in this study following Hassan and Hashim (2010). Oil prices serve as an input for production in sectors, such as agriculture and manufacturing. Changes to these prices are likely to affect the economic act ivities taking place in the country. A negative relationship is hypothesized between oil prices and stock prices since higher oil prices may lead to a decrease in production and thereby lower cash inflows and stock prices. The opposite relationship is expected to hold as well. It should be noted that crude oil price is an external factor the objective is to see whether international factors play a role in the stock markets of Bangladesh. The relationship between money supply and stock prices is not straightforward. It has been widely tested because changes in money supply have important direct effects on stock prices via portfolio changes, and indirect effects via its effects on real activity variables (Mookerjee and Yu, 1987). As money growth rate is likely to be positively related to inflation, it will increase the discount rate and, hence, lower stock prices. However, prices are constant in this study; hence, money supply may affect stock prices through other mechanisms. Sell in (2001) argues that a positive money supply shock will alter expectations about future monetary policy and lead people to anticipate tightening monetary policy in the future. The subsequent increase in bidding for bonds will drive up the current rate of interest. As the interest rate goes up, the discount rates go up as well, and the present value of future earnings decline, leading to decline in stock prices. The increase in money supply may also lead to a boost in companies cash flows resulting from the increased money supply (Mukherjee and Naka, 1995; Chaudhuri and Smiles, 2004), known as corporate earnings effect, which is likely to increase stock prices. For this study, a negative relationship is expected between money supply and stock prices since prices and interest rates are subject to greater fluctuations in developing countries. Data 4.1 Data Sources For the purpose of this paper, monthly data has been collected for the period January 1992 to June 2011. The period was chosen purposefully since the Bangladesh economy has undergone major changes during this period, such as trade liberalisation in the 1990s, stock market crash in 1996, and again in 2010-2011, capital market developments in the 2000s, etc., and it will be interesting to analyse the relationship between the macroeconomic variables and stock index during this period. Firstly, the monthly Dhaka Stock Exchange All-Share index data is obtained from the Dhaka Stock Exchange and its website  [8]  . Next, five macroeconomic variables have been chosen to determine their relationships with the stock prices. These include the interest rate (deposit rate), the exchange rate (domestic currency for US dollar), consumer price index (with a base year of 2005) as a measure of inflation, per barrel price of crude oil in U.S. Dollar, and broad money supply. Oil price is taken to serve as a proxy for international risk factors and external supply side shocks  [9]  . Data on consumer price index, exchange rate, deposit interest rates and crude oil prices were collected from the International Financial Statistics of the International Monetary Fund. Data on broad money was collected from the Monthly Trends publications of the Bangladesh Bank. Other variables were also considered for the study initially, such as call money rate and industrial production index, but due to unreliability and unavailability of data, they had to be excluded from the study. Data Statistics This sub-section provides descriptive statistics and time-plots (attached in Figure A-1a:f in the Appendix) for the data under study. The purpose is to observe the trends that the variables have displayed over the period and analyse the changes that have taken place. For the sake of the study, all the variables (except interest rates  [10]  ) have been converted into natural logarithms  [11]  . The following table gives a summary of the descriptive statistics of the variables: Table 4.: Descriptive Statistics of Variables January 1992 to June 2011 Variable Summary Statistics Logged Variables (except IR) DSI IR ER CPI OP Mean 6.99 8.22 3.98 4.42 3.44 St. Dev. 0.76 1.21 0.22 0.32 0.65 Maximum 8.87 11.39 4.30 5.05 4.89 Minimum 5.66 5.77 3.66 3.93 2.34 Note: DSI is Dhaka Stock Exchange All-Share Index, IR is deposit interest rate, ER is exchange rate, CPI is consumer price index , OP is oil prices and M2 is broad money. All the variables (except interest rates) are in natural logarithms Source: Dhaka Stock Exchange, Bangladesh Bank and International Financial Statistics The table above and the time plot in Figure A-1a show that in the span of 1992M1-2011M6, the DSI has registered high fluctuations in levels. Figure A-1a shows that the DSI has registered an upward trend over the period under consideration. The DSI series shows spikes in 1996 and 2010, both were due to bubbles  [12]  in the stocks. The deposit interest rates were fairly stable in the period under consideration, with low standard deviation in levels, as seen in Table 4.1 and Figure A-1b. The deposit interest rates were lower during the periods of the stock price crashes, as banks were forced then to lower the interest rates that they pay out on deposits to consumers. The exchange rate of Bangladeshi Taka against the U.S. Dollar has been on an upward trend for the entire period, as seen in Figure A-1c. The Bangladesh economy is highly reliant on imports for luxury products and raw materials. Since these transactions are conducted in U.S. Dollars, the exchange rate of the Bangladeshi Taka against the U.S. dollar has been rising. However, the appreciation of the U.S. dollar against the Bangladeshi Taka has ceased since the global financial crisis in 2006-2007, as transactions in U.S. Dollar have reduced. The consumer price index, which is taken to account for inflation  [13]  , has risen steadily over the entire period, with higher increase in recent periods, as shown in Figure A-1d. This is due to high food prices in recent years  [14]  . The crude oil prices data in Figure A-1e show that the prices have remained mostly stable until 2006. Since then, crude oil prices have seen major fluctuations with record-high prices during the recent global financial crisis. The prices were lower in 2008, affected by easing of tensions between the U.S. and Iran. A stronger US dollar in the international market and a likely decline in European demand are also among the causes of the decline. The broad money supply data in Figure A-1f show that M2 has remained stable except for two shocks in 1996 and 2006. However, the overall trend in the broad money data has been upward. Econometric Methodology The purpose of the research is to determine if a long-run relationship exists between the DSI and macroeconomic factors for Bangladesh. The econometric model to be used for the paper is as follows: where the variables are as they have already been defined, and ÃÆ'Ã… ½Ãƒâ€šÃ‚ µt is the error term in the model. ÃÆ'Ã… ½Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢0 represents the constant term in the model and ÃÆ'Ã… ½Ãƒâ€šÃ‚ ²1, ÃÆ'Ã… ½Ãƒâ€šÃ‚ ²2, ÃÆ'Ã… ½Ãƒâ€šÃ‚ ²3, ÃÆ'Ã… ½Ãƒâ€šÃ‚ ²4 and ÃÆ'Ã… ½Ãƒâ€šÃ‚ ²5 represent long-run parameters. Time-series econometrics requires an analysis of the time-series properties and paths of the economic variables in a regression equation before estimation in order to assess if a long-run relationship can be estimated for the model. A long-run relationship exists if the variables are non-stationary in levels and stationary in first differences. More specifically, it should be ensured that the variables in the study are integrated of order d, where dÃÆ' ¢Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ °Ãƒâ€šÃ‚ ¥1, i.e., they should be stationary in differenced forms, denoted as I(d). To test for stationarity, i.e. no unit root, in the variables, two tests are used the Augmented Dickey Fuller (ADF) and Phillips-Perron (PP) tests. ADF estimates the following equation: where ÃÆ'Ã… ½Ãƒâ€šÃ‚ ´ refers to the existence of a trend and ÃÆ' Ãƒâ€šÃ‚ , to presence of unit root. The ADF test is carried out for two models with constant and trend, and constant with no trend (ÃÆ'Ã… ½Ãƒâ€šÃ‚ ´=0). The lag of dependent variable is included to account for autocorrelation. For the Phillips-Perron unit root tests, however ÃÆ'Ã… ½Ãƒâ€šÃ‚ ³j=0, and the PP test incorporates an automatic correction to the test on ÃÆ' Ãƒâ€šÃ‚ =0 to allow for autocorrelated residuals. The PP test estimates: where , and the second term is the Newey-West estimator of the error variance which adjusts the statistics for the possibility of autocorrelated error. The optimum lag length to be used in ADF tests are decided using the Schwert maximum lag length, sequential t-test procedure, Akaike Information Criterion (AIC) and Schwarz Bayesian Information Criterion (SBIC). The lower the value of the criterion, the better the fit for the unit root tests. When the sample is large, say T 250, it is better to rely on SBIC. However, if the sample contains observations below T 250, AIC is a better fit and used to account for the optimal lag length. After testing the variables for unit root, the next step entails determining if cointegration exists among the variables. Engle and Granger (1987) suggest that a long-term equilibrium relation between stock prices and macroeconomic factors can be determined using cointegration analysis. If two or more series individually have unit root series, but some linear combination  of them has a stationary process, then the series is said to be cointegrated. The Johansen (1991) method is an extension of Engle and Granger procedure, all owing for more than one cointegrating equation and it this procedure which will be undertaken. Suppose for a multivariate case, where Yt is a vector of k variables, and i 1,2 ÃÆ'Ã… ½Ãƒâ€¹Ã…“i is k x k. This can be manipulated and written as: where ÃÆ' ¢Ãƒâ€¹Ã¢â‚¬  Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚  Yt = Yt Yt-1, and ÃÆ' ¢Ãƒâ€¹Ã¢â‚¬  Ãƒâ€šÃ‚ k = ÃÆ'Ã… ½Ãƒâ€¹Ã…“1 + ÃÆ'Ã… ½Ãƒâ€¹Ã…“2 Ik. If the rank of ÃÆ' ¢Ãƒâ€¹Ã¢â‚¬  Ãƒâ€šÃ‚ k is zero, then there are no cointegrating vectors. In the presence of cointegration, ÃÆ' ¢Ãƒâ€¹Ã¢â‚¬  Ãƒâ€šÃ‚ k has rank r ÃÆ' ¢Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ °Ãƒâ€šÃ‚ ¤ k 1, and then, ÃÆ' ¢Ãƒâ€¹Ã¢â‚¬  Ãƒâ€šÃ‚ k = ÃÆ'Ã… ½Ãƒâ€šÃ‚ ±ÃƒÆ'Ã… ½Ãƒâ€šÃ‚ ², where ÃÆ'Ã… ½Ãƒâ€šÃ‚ ± is k x r and ÃÆ'Ã… ½Ãƒâ€šÃ‚ ² is r x k. Then, this can be written as: where ÃÆ'Ã… ½Ãƒâ€šÃ‚ ² is the cointegrating matrix, ÃÆ'Ã… ½Ãƒâ€šÃ‚ ²Yt represents the r linear combination and ÃÆ'Ã… ½Ãƒâ€šÃ‚ ± represents the speed of adjustment towards the long-run equilibrium relationship. In o rder to perform Johansen tests, we need to compute the k eigenvalues of , which is the estimate of ÃÆ' ¢Ãƒâ€¹Ã¢â‚¬  Ãƒâ€šÃ‚ k. It is assumed that is the squared canonical relationship ordered from the largest to the smallest. If there are r cointegrating relationships, then log(1 + ÃÆ'Ã… ½Ãƒâ€šÃ‚ »j) = 0 for j=r+1,ÃÆ' ¢Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â‚¬Å¡Ã‚ ¬Ãƒâ€šÃ‚ ¦,k. Test for H0 : r ÃÆ' ¢Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ °Ãƒâ€šÃ‚ ¤ r0 versus HA : r r0, i.e. under the null, the number of cointegrating vector is at most r0, under the alternative, it is larger than r0. This is called a Trace test. The maximum eigenvalue test is also conducted to test for the number of cointegrating relationships. Under the maximum eigenvalue test, H0 : r ÃÆ' ¢Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ °Ãƒâ€šÃ‚ ¤ r0 versus HA : r = r0 + 1, i.e. under the null, the number of cointegrating vector is at most r0, under the alternative, it is equal to r0 + 1. If at least one cointegrating relationship exists among the variables, a causal relationship among them can be determined by estimating the Vector Error Correction Model (VECM). In this study, the short-run VECM equation with a lag length p is modeled as: where the variables are I(1) and as previously defined, ÃÆ'Ã… ½Ãƒâ€šÃ‚ ±1, ÃÆ'Ã… ½Ãƒâ€šÃ‚ ±2, ÃÆ'Ã… ½Ãƒâ€šÃ‚ ±3, ÃÆ'Ã… ½Ãƒâ€šÃ‚ ±4, ÃÆ'Ã… ½Ãƒâ€šÃ‚ ±5 and ÃÆ'Ã… ½Ãƒâ€šÃ‚ ±6 represent short-run elasticities, ÃÆ'Ã… ½Ãƒâ€šÃ‚ µt-1 is the error correction term, with its coefficient ÃÆ' Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚  , which conveys the long-run information contained in the data and denotes the speed of adjustment to long-run equilibrium after a shock to the system. The VECM builds on cointegration by incorporating error correction terms that account for short-run dynamics, and, if a long-run equilibrium condition is valid and cointegration exists, it explains short-run fluctuations (as represented by the ÃÆ'Ã… ½Ãƒâ€šÃ‚ ±1, ÃÆ' ¢Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â‚¬Å¡Ã‚ ¬Ãƒâ€šÃ‚ ¦. ÃÆ'Ã… ½Ãƒâ€šÃ‚ ±6) in the dependent variable (Frimpong, 2009). The optimal num ber of lags is determined by lag length in VAR using AIC. Impulse Response Functions (IRF) and Variance Decompositions (VDC) will be constructed after estimating the VECM. IRF is a useful tool for characterizing the dynamic responses implied by estimated VECMs. Consider a first-order VAR for the n-vector yt: where ÃÆ'Ã… ½Ãƒâ€šÃ‚ ¼ is the vector of intercepts and ÃÆ'Ã… ½Ãƒâ€šÃ‚ µt ~ IN (0,). The IRF of a shock to variable, for instance, IR on variable DSI after k periods as: where ÃÆ'Ã… ½Ãƒâ€šÃ‚ µIR,t is the vector ÃÆ'Ã… ½Ãƒâ€šÃ‚ µt excluding the IR element. The IRF measures the effect of a shock of 1 unit occurring at period t-k, on variable DSI, k periods later, assuming there are no other shocks at period t-k, or in the other intervening periods (t-k+1,ÃÆ' ¢Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â‚¬Å¡Ã‚ ¬Ãƒâ€šÃ‚ ¦t). The IRF shows impulse responses of the select variable in the VECM system in regards to the time paths of the variables own error shock against the error shocks to other variables in the system. Since the innovations of error terms are likely to be correlated, a mechanism of Impulse Response via the Generalized Impulse Response method is implemented, to ensure orthogonalization of the innovations. Unlike other mechanisms of orthogonalization of innovations where the interpretation of specific impulses rests on the ordering of variables within the VAR system, the Generalized Impulse Response has no such concern on the VAR ordering. The VDC is implemented to show the percentage of the movement of the t-step ahead forecast error variance of the select variable in the VECM system that is attributed to its own error shock in contrast to error shocks to other variables in the system (Gunasekarage, 2004). Empirical Results 6.1 Results of Unit Root Tests It is essential to confirm the order of integration of all the variables before the model is estimated and tested for cointegration. The Augmented Dickey Fuller and Phillips-Perron tests are employed to test for unit roots and the results are reported in Table 6.1. The tests were conducted for all the variables with both a constant and a time trend, with lags for the ADF tests selected as per the Akaike Information Criterion, unless otherwise stated. The lags were also tested for significance prior to their results being reported. For the PP test, Bandwidth or the lag truncation parameter was chosen using the estimation method of Bartlett kernel. The null hypothesis for the ADF and PP tests is that the selected variable has a unit root. When the test statistic for a variable was greater than the critical value for the test, the null of unit root was rejected and vice versa. Table 6.: Results of Unit Root Tests Variable Augmented Dickey Fuller Phillips Perron Constant Trend and Constant Constant Trend and Constant Level DSI -0.95 (1) -2.08 (1) -0.92 (5) IR -2.26 (1) -2.73 (1) -2.76 (8) ER -0.58 (10) -2.53 (10) -0.31 (2) CPI 2.01 (4) -1.73 (4) 1.68 (9) OP -0.67 (1) -2.94 (1) -0.61 (4) M2 -3.65 (5) 0.21 (5) 1.18 (1) First Differences ÃÆ' ¢Ãƒâ€¹Ã¢â‚¬  Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚  DSI -12.83 (0)*** -12.81 (0)*** -12.85 (3)*** ÃÆ' ¢Ãƒâ€¹Ã¢â‚¬  Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚  IR -5.78 (2)*** -6.03 (2)*** -14.43 (8)*** ÃÆ' ¢Ãƒâ€¹Ã¢â‚¬  Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚  ER -4.07 (7)*** -4.06 (7)*** -13.00 (5)*** ÃÆ' ¢Ãƒâ€¹Ã¢â‚¬  Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚  CPI -4.39 (10)*** -4.69 (10)*** -10.30 (16)*** ÃÆ' ¢Ãƒâ€¹Ã¢â‚¬  Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚  OP -11.84 (0)*** -11.84 (0)*** -11.82 (1)*** ÃÆ' ¢Ãƒâ€¹Ã¢â‚¬  Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚  M2 -7.79 (5)*** -11.66 (4)*** -26.04 (1)*** The ADF and PP critical values for t-statistics at 1% and 5% significance levels for th e model with the constant are -3.46 and -2.88 respectively; the model including both the trend and constant are -4.00 and -3.43 respectively ***, ** and * denote the rejection of unit root/non-stationarity for the ADF and PP tests at 1%, 5% and 10% significance levels respectively The numbers in parentheses for the ADF tests correspond to the optimum lag length, as per Akaike Information Criterion, unless otherwise stated The numbers in parentheses for the PP tests correspond to the Bandwidth, based on Newey-West using Bartlett Kernel for PP MacKinnon (1996) critical values are used for ADF and PP tests. The variables show non-stationarity in levels and stationarity in first differences, for both the ADF and PP tests. The lags for interest rates in levels under the ADF test estimated using the AIC were insignificant with a constant and trend at 5% significance level, hence, the lags were changed until they were significant and then the appropriate test statistic repor ted. The lags for the first differences of the exchange rates data under the ADF test estimated using the AIC were insignificant with a constant and trend at 10% significance level. Similar to the tests for interest rates, the lags were then modified until they showed significance. As can be observed from Table 6.1 above, all the variables are non-stationary in levels, and stationary in first differences, a necessary pre-condition for cointegration analysis. 6.2 Results of Optimum Lag Length Tests In choosing the specification of the cointegration model, it is necessary to specify the number of lags in the autoregressive specification (Chaudhuri and Smiles, 2004). For this purpose, the Likelihood Ratio, Final Prediction Error, Akaike, Schwarz and Hannan-Quinn Information Criterion were used to determine the appropriate lag length. The AIC, SIC and HQIC are chosen based on lowest values over the lags considered (allowed for a maximum ten lags in this case). The Akaike criterion suggests that a lag of five is optimal, whereas the Schwarz criterion indicates a lag of one. Since the number of observations considered in the study is below 250, the AIC is a better fit for the model. In addition, overestimating the order of the VAR is a bigger mistake than underestimating it and, hence, it is better to rely on AIC. Table 6.: VECM Lag Order Selection Criteria Lag LR FPE AIC SIC HQIC 0 4.6-9 -2.16 -2.07 -2.12 1 4374.6 2.1-17 -21.37 - 20.73* -21.11 2 123.86 1.7-17 -21.60 -20.41 -21.12* 3 66.87 1.7-17 -21.58 -19.84 -20.88 4 74.43 1.7-17 -21.59 -19.30 -20.67 5 86.98 1.6-17* -21.66* -18.82 -20.51 6 57.24 1.7-17 -21.59 -18.21 -20.22 7 75.44 1.7-17 -21.60 -17.68 -20.02 8 61.34* 1.8-17 -21.56 -17.08 -19.75 9 38.71 2.2-17 -21.41 -16.38 -19.38 10 44.92 2.5-17 -21.29 -15.71 -19.04 *indicates lag order selected by the criterion 6.3 Results of Johansen Cointegration Tests Table 6.3 shows the results for the Johansen Cointegration test performed to investigate the long-run relationships of the variables in the model. However, the number of cointegrating vectors generated by the Johansen test may be sensitive to the lag length. Hence, the optimum lag length estimated in the previous section via AIC (five) will be used to determine the number of cointegrating relations. Table 6.: Results for Johansen Cointegration Test No. of CE(s) [H0] ÃÆ'Ã… ½Ãƒâ€šÃ‚ »max Statistic 95% Critical Value [Max.] 99% Critical Value [Max.] ÃÆ'Ã… ½Ãƒâ€šÃ‚ »trace Statistic 95% Critical Value [Trace] 99% Critical Value [Trace] r=0 41.58 39.37 45.10 104.51 94.15 103.18 rÃÆ' ¢Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ °Ãƒâ€šÃ‚ ¤1 32.59 33.46 38.77 62.93* 68.52 76.07 rÃÆ' ¢Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ °Ãƒâ€šÃ‚ ¤2 14.57 27.07 32.24 30.35 47.21 54.46 rÃÆ' ¢Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ °Ãƒâ€šÃ‚ ¤3 10.35 20.97 25.52 15.78 29.68 35.65 rÃÆ' ¢Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ °Ãƒâ€šÃ‚ ¤4 5.36 14.07 18.63 5.42 15.41 20.04 rÃÆ' ¢Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ °Ãƒâ€šÃ‚ ¤5 0.06 3.76 6.65 0.06 3.76 6.65 *denotes rejection of the hypothesis at the 5% and 1% significance level r denotes the number of cointegrating relationships CE refers to cointegrating equations The first column in Table 6.3 shows the null hypothesis assumed for the Maximum Eigenvalue and Trace Tests. The value of ÃÆ'Ã… ½Ãƒâ€šÃ‚ »trace under the null of r = 0 (no cointegration) is 104.51, which is greater than 94.15, the 5% critical value reported from Osterwald-Lenum (1992), so the null of no cointegration can be rejected in favour of one cointegrating equation. For r ÃÆ' ¢Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ °Ãƒâ€šÃ‚ ¤ 1, the ÃÆ'Ã… ½Ãƒâ€šÃ‚ »trace measure is less than the critical value at 1% and 5% significance levels, which forms the basis for accepting the null hypothesis of at least one cointegrating vector. An alternative measure th at is used to determine the number of cointegrating vectors is ÃÆ'Ã… ½Ãƒâ€šÃ‚ »max. The ÃÆ'Ã… ½Ãƒâ€šÃ‚ »max shows that at the 5% significance level, the null hypothesis of no cointegrating vector is rejected since the value of 41.58 is greater than 39.37. However, similar to the ÃÆ'Ã… ½Ãƒâ€šÃ‚ »trace statistic, for r ÃÆ' ¢Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ °Ãƒâ€šÃ‚ ¤ 1 and other values of r, the ÃÆ'Ã… ½Ãƒâ€šÃ‚ »max measure is less than the critical value at 5% significance level. Therefore, it can be assumed that there is at least one cointegrating vector. According to both ÃÆ'Ã… ½Ãƒâ€šÃ‚ »trace and ÃÆ'Ã… ½Ãƒâ€šÃ‚ »max statistics, it can be confirmed that there is at least one long-run equilibrium relationship between the Dhaka Stock Exchange All-Share Index and macroeconomic variables. Lags of six and seven were considered to check for robustness; they also indicated one cointegrating relationship. 6.4 Results of Long-Run Cointegration Model Table 6.4 shows the long-run cointegrating model. The long-run relationships were as hypothesized in the study and these are reported below: Table 6.: Long Run Cointegrating Model Regressor Coefficient Std. Error t-statistics Constant -1.39 Interest Rate -0.12 0.07 -1.79* Exchange Rate 5.26 1.33 3.94*** Consumer Price Index 3.01 2.26 1.33 Crude Oil Prices -0.69 0.21 -3.28*** Broad Money Supply -2.66 1.19 -2.23** ***, ** and * denote significance of variables at the 1%, 5% and 10% significance levels. Note: Dependent Variable DSI According to the table, the actual long-run relationship can be represented by: DSI = -0.12IR + 5.26ER + 3.01CPI 0.69OP -2.66M2 In the long-run, deposit interest rates and the DSI are significantly and negatively related. This was expected as high deposit interest rates mean that rational investors would be less interested to invest in risky assets in the Dhaka Stock Exchange. Consequently, this will lower the stock prices and hence, the DSI. The relationship was found to be significant at 10% level in the long-run. The finding is consistent with the literature, though early studies dealt primarily with Treasury-bill (short -term) rate and government bond rate (long-term)  [15]  . Mukherjee and Naka (1995), Maysami and Koh (2000), and Bulmash and Trivoli (1991) found a positive relation between the short-term interest rates and stock market prices, and a negative relationship between long-term interest rates and stock prices. The relationship between deposit interest rates and stock prices in the study are, therefore, consistent with the results of the long-term interest rates. The exchange rate and the DSI are significantly and positively related in the long-run. This was also hypothesized since increasing exchange rates (Taka depreciation against the U.S. Dollar) result in money inflows, and, consequently higher investment in the stocks. A higher investment in the Dhaka Stock Exchange would lead to higher prices for the stocks and higher DSI. Mukherjee and Naka (1995) and Brown and Otsuki (1990) also report the same relation for the Japanese stock market. This is in contrast to Maysami and Koh (2000) and Gunasekarage (2004). Maysami and Koh (2000) found that the Singapore Dollar exchange rate (against the U.S. Dollar) and the Singapore stock market are negatively related. They state that an appreciation of the Singaporean Dollar lowers imported inputs and allows the exporters in the country to be more competitive internationally. This is received as favourable news for the Singapore stock markets and, hence, positive stock returns are generated as a result. Gunasekarage (2004) found that exchange rates have no significant relationship with the Colombo stock prices. This was due to limited participation by the foreign investors. It was hypothesized that the relationship between CPI and the DSI in the long-run will be either negative or insignificant due to large price changes. However, long-run cointegrating model shows that the relationship between CPI and stock prices is positive; a possible reason for the positive relationship is that high prices of essentials might have led to an increase in the stock prices. The relationship, though, was insignificant, which confirms that large price changes in Bangladesh affect the theorized relationship. Price fluctuations in developing countries are more prevalent due to lower regulations, competition, etc. and explain why the relationship was found insignificant. The result found here is not consistent with early evidence in the literature Lintner (1973), Oudet (1973), Bodie (1976), Nelson (1976), Mukherjee and Naka (1995) and Gunasekerage (2004) found a negative relationship between CPI and stock prices. The relationship between crude oil prices and the DSI was found to be negative in the long-run. Chen et al. (1986) found an insignificant relationship between oil prices and the NYSE. Hassan and Hisham (2010) found a negative relationship between crude oil prices and the Jordan Stock Exchange. However, it has been recently seen that crude oil prices and stock prices are positively related, ignoring the theorized relationship. For e.g., the Standard Poors (SP) 500 Index and the oil prices from 1998-2008 have demonstrated a positive relationship with each other with a correlation of 0.55 and the correlation has increased to 0.86 since 2008 (Smirnov, 2012). However, for the DSI, the relationship was negative with oil prices and consistent with the hypothesis. The relationship between money supply and stock prices was found to be negative and significant at 5% level in the long-run. As money supply is increased, it leads people to expect a tightening monetary policy in the future and hence, a higher interest and discount rate, and lower stock prices. This is consistent with Frimpong (2009), who similarly found a negative relationship between the Ghana stock prices and money supply. However, most of the studies in the literature have found a positive relationship between stock prices and money supply, such as Bulmash and Trivoli (1991), Mukherjee and Naka (1995) and Gunesekarag e (2004). To check for robustness, lags of six and seven were considered. All the variables reported the same relationship with the stock prices at six lags; however, oil prices and money supply were insignificant in explaining stock price changes. Lags of seven rendered the relationship between oil and stock prices significant, but the relationship between money supply and stock prices remained insignificant. This shows that money supply and oil prices are sensitive to lag lengths and the results for these variables are not robust. 6.5 Results of Short-Run Cointegration Model Table 6.5 below reports the short-run results of the Vector Error Correction Model. The sign and magnitude of the error correction coefficient (speed adjustment term) indicates the direction and speed of adjustment towards the long-run equilibrium path. A negative error correction coefficient implies that the models deviation from the long-run relation, in the absence of variation in the independent variables, is corrected by changes in the dependent variable. This confirms the existence of a long-run relationship. The size of the coefficient of the error correction term in this study implies that about 5.3% of the disequilibrium in the long-run model is corrected every month. The error term coefficient was significant at the 5% level. The short-run results indicate that DSI and interest rates positively affect the DSI at the first lag; the results from the latter lags are insignificant. CPI positively affects the stock prices at the third lag, but it was insignificant for other lags. Exchange rates, oil prices and money supply mostly affect the DSI negatively, but these variables are also statistically insignificant at most lags. Other lags were also considered for robustness and better results. Lags of four and seven revealed a negative sign for the error correction term but it was not significant. The other variables, similarly, did not result in more significant or robust estimates. Due to statistical insignificance of the variables, Impulse Response Function is employed to explain the short-run results better. Table 6.: Vector Error Correction Model Error Correction: Coefficient Standard Error t-statistics Speed of Adjustment -0.053 0.022 -2.42** ÃÆ' ¢Ãƒâ€¹Ã¢â‚¬  Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚  DSIt-1 0.172 0.071 2.44** ÃÆ' ¢Ãƒâ€¹Ã¢â‚¬  Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚  DSIt-2 -0.012 0.071 -0.17 ÃÆ' ¢Ãƒâ€¹Ã¢â‚¬  Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚  DSIt-3 0.110 0.071 1.55 ÃÆ' ¢Ãƒâ€¹Ã¢â‚¬  Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚  DSIt-4 -0.002 0.072 -0.02 ÃÆ' ¢Ãƒâ€¹Ã¢â‚¬  Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚  IRt-1 -0.025 0.024 -1.03 ÃÆ' ¢Ãƒâ€¹Ã¢â‚¬  Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚  IRt-2 0.028 0.024 1.15 ÃÆ' ¢Ãƒâ€¹Ã¢â‚¬  Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚  IRt-3 -0.023 0.025 -0.92 ÃÆ' ¢Ãƒâ€¹Ã¢â‚¬  Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚  IRt-4 0.017 0.025 0.65 ÃÆ' ¢Ãƒâ€¹Ã¢â‚¬  Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚  ERt-1 -0.968 0.924 -1.05 ÃÆ' ¢Ãƒâ€¹Ã¢â‚¬  Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚  ERt-2 0.093 0.935 0.10 ÃÆ' ¢Ãƒâ€¹Ã¢â‚¬  Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚  ERt-3 -0.576 0.937 -0.61 ÃÆ' ¢Ãƒâ€¹Ã¢â‚¬  Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚  ERt-4 -0.708 0.958 -0.74 ÃÆ' ¢Ãƒâ€¹Ã¢â‚¬  Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚  CPIt-1 -0.172 0.883 -0.20 ÃÆ' ¢Ãƒâ€¹Ã¢â‚¬  Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚  CPIt-2 0.247 0.895 0.28 ÃÆ' ¢Ãƒâ€¹Ã¢â‚¬  Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚  CPIt-3 1.803 0.903 2.00** ÃÆ' ¢Ãƒâ€¹Ã¢â‚¬  Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚  CPIt-4 -0.020 0.889 -0.02 ÃÆ' ¢Ãƒâ€¹Ã¢â‚¬  Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚  OPt-1 0.090 0.087 1.04 ÃÆ' ¢Ãƒâ€¹Ã¢â‚¬  Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚  OPt-2 0.074 0.08 8 0.84 ÃÆ' ¢Ãƒâ€¹Ã¢â‚¬  Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚  OPt-3 -0.056 0.088 -0.62 ÃÆ' ¢Ãƒâ€¹Ã¢â‚¬  Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚  OPt-4 -0.023 0.087 -0.26 ÃÆ' ¢Ãƒâ€¹Ã¢â‚¬  Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚  M2t-1 -0.186 0.282 -0.66 ÃÆ' ¢Ãƒâ€¹Ã¢â‚¬  Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚  M2t-2 -0.026 0.319 -0.08 ÃÆ' ¢Ãƒâ€¹Ã¢â‚¬  Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚  M2t-3 0.026 0.308 0.08 ÃÆ' ¢Ãƒâ€¹Ã¢â‚¬  Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚  M2t-4 0.045 0.259 0.17 Constant 0.001 0.015 0.05 6.6 Results of Impulse Response Functions and Variance Decompositions The results for the Impulse Response Functions are reported in Figure A-2. Impulse Response Analysis entails analysing the incremental impact of a shock to the whole system. Hence, we are primarily concerned about the behaviour of the short-run dynamics of the model in the presence of any external shock to the system. Figure A-2 shows the effect of macroeconomic shocks on the DSI. Four years of data are forecasted and their effects plotted via Impulse Response Functions. An interest rate shock causes the DSI to fluctuate initially, however, from the 15th month onwards, the effect from the shock recedes and in the 30th month, the effect dies out. An exchange rate shock results in a big dip in the DSI; this is in contrast to the long-run relationship found. The resulting fall from the shock increases over time, but from the 6th month onwards, the gap remains steady. There are no signs of convergence here, unlike the interest rates. A consumer price index shock leads to an incre ase in the DSI initially, but then the relationship becomes negative, which is consistent with the study. This effect is seen to increase slowly over time. Oil prices shock lead to a large increase in the DSI initially and the effect increases with time. Money supply shock leads to a slight fall in the DSI the first month, but then increases the DSI over time, which supports the cash flow effect of money supply. Table 6.6 reports the Variance Decomposition test results. Twenty months of the model are forecasted and the results indicate that most of the variations in the DSI are explained by the DSI itself. In the 5th period, 94.58% of the variation in the DSI was explained by shocks to itself, 2.09% by ER and 2.54% by OP. At the end of the 10th period, 4.98% and 5.65% of the variations in the DSI were explained by shocks to ER and OP respectively. The results obtained from VDCs combined with IRF indicate that the macroeconomic shocks explain a minority of the forecast error varia nce in the DSI, though, exchange rates and oil prices have a significant influence on the stock prices. It must be noted though that most of the shocks from the macroeconomic variables are permanent and persist for a long period. Table 6.: Variance Decomposition of DSI Period Std. Error DSI IR ER CPI OP M2 1 0.099 100.000 0.000 0.000 0.000 0.000 0.000 2 0.151 99.032 0.199 0.336 0.015 0.414 0.005 3 0.188 97.691 0.129 0.595 0.011 1.553 0.020 4 0.223 96.372 0.108 1.059 0.249 2.127 0.086 5 0.253 94.578 0.085 2.098 0.443 2.541 0.255 6 0.281 92.929 0.069 2.985 0.513 3.063 0.441 7 0.305 91.460 0.064 3.680 0.511 3.617 0.667 8 0.326 89.925 0.066 4.206 0.476 4.292 1.034 9 0.346 88.560 0.068 4.613 0.442 4.988 1.328 10 0.363 87.356 0.073 4.9 76 0.411 5.650 1.535 11 0.380 86.291 0.078 5.239 0.382 6.299 1.711 12 0.395 85.270 0.083 5.479 0.355 6.934 1.879 13 0.410 84.255 0.085 5.732 0.330 7.546 2.053 14 0.423 83.282 0.084 5.977 0.310 8.136 2.210 15 0.436 82.348 0.082 6.211 0.294 8.714 2.351 16 0.448 81.449 0.079 6.417 0.282 9.279 2.493 17 0.459 80.579 0.076 6.605 0.273 9.833 2.633 18 0.470 79.731 0.073 6.784 0.268 10.375 2.769 19 0.481 78.910 0.069 6.949 0.265 10.908 2.898 20 0.491 78.109 0.067 7.102 0.265 11.434 3.022 To test for robustness, a VAR model was constructed in first differences, and IRF and VDC drawn from its estimates. The IRF demonstrated short-run results very similar to the IRF from the VECM model. The results for the VDC from the VECM and VAR models are also similar. A very low percentage of the changes in stock prices is explained by the variables, though exchange rate explains a high proportion of the changes in stock prices. Conclusion The study investigates the long-term relations between macroeconomic variables and the Dhaka stock market prices using Johansens methodology of multivariate cointegration analysis and Vector Error Correction Model. Variables such as interest rates, exchange rates, consumer price index, crude oil prices and money supply were used to represent the macroeconomic forces while the Dhaka Stock Exchange All-Share Index was used to represent changes in the Dhaka stock market prices. The main findings revealed that there is a long-term relationship between the stock prices and the macroeconomic variables. According to the cointegration analysis and the VECM estimated in the study, the stock prices and macroeconomic variables are related significantly and in accordance with the hypothesized relationship. The interest rates were negatively related with the stock prices, implying that investors shift away from stocks when the deposit interest rates are high and vice versa. The exchange rate s are positively related with the stock prices meaning that Taka appreciation leads to lower money inflows and, hence, lower stock prices and vice versa. The consumer price index is found to be insignificant in explaining the stock prices. This was hypothesized as large price changes in Bangladesh may render an insignificant relationship between CPI and stock prices. The relationship between crude oil prices and stock prices was found to be negative and significant. The broad money supply is negatively related with the stock prices which confirms that expectations about tightening money supply in the future leads to higher interest rates and lower stock prices. This was significant at the 5% significance level. The short-term results of the VECM revealed that around 5.3% of the disequilibrium in the long-run model is corrected every month. The DSI and interest rates were negatively related with the stock prices and at the first lag; though, the latter lags were insignificant. Ex change rates, consumer price index, oil prices and money supply were also insignificant at most lags. Since the VECM results were inconclusive, the Impulse Response Functions and Variance Decompositions were undertaken. An interest rate shock causes the DSI to fluctuate initially, but a tendency to converge to equilibrium is seen. An exchange rate shock results in a large fall in the DSI initially, but the gap remains steady afterwards. A consumer price index shock leads to an increase in the DSI initially, but then the relationship becomes negative, which is consistent with the literature. Oil prices shock lead to a large increase in the DSI initially and the effect seems to increase slowly over time. Money supply shock increases the DSI over time, which supports the corporate earnings effect. The Variance Decomposition results indicate that that the macroeconomic shocks explain a small proportion of the forecast error variance in the DSI, though, exchange rates and oil prices have a significant influence on the stock prices. Most of the shocks from the macroeconomic variables are permanent and persist for a long period. In light of the analysis made in the study, policymakers and economists in Bangladesh need to be careful when they try to influence the economy through changes in key macroeconomic variables comprising the interest rates, exchange rates, consumer prices index and money supply. Since the Bangladesh economy is small, they should also be aware of international factors such as crude oil prices as these also have a significant impact on the economy. The Bangladesh stock market is an established capital market and its development is crucial for the growth of the country. Thus, the government and policymakers should aim to influence the key macroeconomic variables in a way that ensures that stock prices are stabilized and stock markets are performing in an efficient and effective manner. References Bespoke Investment Group, 2010, 2010 Country Stock Market Performance, https://www.bespokeinvest.com/thinkbig/2010/9/3/2010-country-stock-market-performance.html, last accessed June 20, 2012. Bloomberg, 1997, Bangladesh Stock Market Lures Investors Hungry for Next Vietnam, retrieved from https://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchivesid=ajYCq0jTs6Forefer=india, last accessed 10th June, 2012 Bodhurta, N. J., Cho, C. D. and Senbet, W. L., 1989, Economic Forces and the Stock Market: An International Perspective, The Global Finance Journal 1(1) pp. 21-46 Bodie, Z., 1976, Common stocks as a hedge against inflation, Journal of Finance 31, pp. 459-470 Brown S., J. and Otsuki, T., 1990, Macroeconomic factors and the Japanese equity markets: The CAPMD Project, Japanese Capital Markets, Harper and Row: New York Bulmash, S. B. and Trivoli, W. G., 1991, Time-lagged interactions between stock prices and selected economic variables, Journal of Portfolio Management pp. 61-67 Cheng, A. C. S., 1995, The UK Stock Market and Economic Factors: A New Approach, Journal of Business Finance and Accounting 22(1), pp. 129-142 Chen, N. F., Roll, T. and Ross, A. S., 1986, Economic forces and the stock market, Journal of Business 59, 383-403. Cheung, Y-W, and Lai, S.K., 1999, Macroeconomic determinants of long-term stock market comovements among major EMS countries, Applied Financial Economics, 9(1), pp. 73-85 DeFina, R. H., 1991, Does inflation depress the stock market?, Business Review, Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia, 3-12 Diacogiannis, G. P., 1986, Arbitrage Pricing Model: A Critical Examination of its Empirical Applicability for the London Stock Exchange, Journal of Business Finance and Accounting 13 (4), pp. 489-504 Engle, R. F. and Granger, C. W. J., 1987, Co-integration and Error Correction: Representation, Estimation, and Testing,  Econometrica, 55(2), pp. 251-76 Fama, E. F., 1990, Stock returns, expected returns and real acti vity, Journal of Finance 45, pp. 1089-1108 Fama, F. E. and Gibbons, M., 1984, A comparison of inflation forecasts, Journal of Monetary Economics 13, pp. 327-248 Fama, F. E. and Schwert, W. G., 1977, Asset Returns and Inflation, Journal of Financial Economics 5, pp. 115-146 Flannery, J. M. and Protopapadakis, A. A., 2002, Macroeconomic Factor do influence aggregate stock returns, The Review of Financial Studies 15(3), pp. 751-782 Frimpong, M. J., 2009, Economic Forces and the Stock Market in a Developing Economy: Cointegration Evidence from Ghana, European Journal of Economics, Finance and Administrative Sciences 16, pp. 123-135 Goldsmith, R. W., 1969, Financial Structure and Development, New Haven: Yale University Press Gunasekarage, A., Pisedtasalasai, A. and Power, M. D., 2004, Macro-economic influences on the stock market: Evidence from an Emerging Market in South Asia, Journal of Emerging Market Finance 3(3) 285-304. Gà ¼nsel, N. and Çukur, S., 2007, Th e Effects of Macroeconomic Factors on the London Stock Returns: A Sectoral Approach, International Research Journal of Finance and Economics 10, pp. 140-152 Gurley, J. G. and Shaw, E. S., 1955, Financial Aspects of Economic Development, American Economic Review, 45, pp. 515-538 Gurley, J. G. and Shaw, E. S., 1960, Money in a Theory of Finance, Brookings Institution, Washington D.C. Gurley, J. G. and Shaw, E. S., 1967, Financial Development and Economic Development, Economic Development and Cultural Change 15(3), pp. 257-268 Harvey, C. R., 1995a, Predictable risk and returns in emerging markets, Review of Financial Studies 8, 773816 Hassan, M. G. and Hisham, A., 2010, Can Macroeconomic Factors Explain Equity Returns in the Long Run? The Case of Jordan, MPRA Paper 22713, University Library of Munich, Germany Hume, D., 1752, Political Discourses, Edinburgh: A. Kincaid A. Donaldson Johansen, S., 1991, Estimation and hypothesis testing of cointegrating vectors in Ga ussian vector autoregressive models, Econometrica 59, 1551-80 LeRoy, S. and Porter, R. D., 1981, The Present-Value Relation: Tests based on Implied Variance Bounds, Econometrica 49, pp. 555-574 Levine, R. and Zervos, S., 1996, Stock Market Development and Long-Run Growth, The World Bank Economic Review, 10(2), pp. 323-339 Levine, R., 2004, Finance and Growth: Theory and Evidence, National Bureau of Economic Research, Working Paper 10766 Lintner, J., 1973, Inflation and common stock prices in a cyclical context, National Bureau of Economic Research Annual Report Ma, C. K. and Kao, G.W., 1990, On Exchange Rate Changes and Stock Price Reactions, Journal of Business Finance and Accounting 17, pp. 441-449 Maysami, R. C. and Koh, T. S., 2000, A Vector Error Correction Model of the Singapore stock market. International Review of Economics and Finance 9, pp. 79-96 McKinnon, R.I., 1973, Money and Capital in Economic Development, Brookings Institution, Washington D.C. Mobarek, A. and Mollah, S. A., 2005, The General Determinants of Share Returns: An Empirical Investigation on the Dhaka Stock Exchange, Review of Pacific Basin Financial Markets and Policies 8(4), pp. 593-612 Mookerjee, R. and Yu, Q., 1997, Macroeconomic variables and stock prices in a small open economy: The case of Singapore, Pacific-Basin Finance Journal 5, pp. 377-388 Mukherjee, K. T. and Naka, A., 1995, Dynamic Relations between Macroeconomic Variables and the Japanese Stock Market: An Application of a Vector Error Correction Model, The Journal of Financial Research 18 (2) 223-237. Nasseh, A. and Strauss, J., 2000, Stock prices and domestic and international macroeconomic activity: A cointegration approach, The Quarterly Review of Economic