2015DOI: 10.1016/j.scienta.2015.07.02

Exchange rate fluctuations play a vital role in influencing macroeconomic variables including economic growth via the channels of net exports and investments. This study claims to be the first in assessing the asymmetric effect of exchange rate fluctuations on G.D.P. in Pakistan whose currency had the title of ‘worst currency of South Asia’ in 2018 after more than 20% depreciation in just three months. In this study, we employ a recently developed technique of Non-linear A.R.D.L. by Shin, Yu, and Greenwood-Nimmo ( 2014 Shin, Y. , Yu, B. , & Greenwood-Nimmo, M. (2014). Modelling asymmetric cointegration and dynamic multipliers in a nonlinear ARDL framework. In Festschrift in Honor of Peter Schmidt (pp. 281–314). New York, NY: Springer. [Crossref] , [Google Scholar] ) to test for possible asymmetric effect of exchange rate on G.D.P. along with the proxies of fiscal and monetary policies. Both A.R.D.L. and N.A.R.D.L. are applied on annual data range from 1972 to 2014. The results of A.R.D.L. are found poor and co-integration relationship lost when the assumption of symmetry is taken into consideration. On the contrary, Non-linear A.R.D.L. technique carry more rich information related to the issue at hand and co-integration relationship is confirmed. From the results we found that week currency hurts G.D.P. growth, while strong currency adds to growth. Besides these, we confirm asymmetric impact of exchange rate on G.D.P. growth in Pakistan and find the evidence of short-run, long-run and adjustment asymmetry. To achieve the objective of sustained growth, exchange rate management should focus to restore stability and go for more strong currency in Pakistan. Future research needs to consider capital flows and exchange rate regimes in the form of ‘Sudden Stop hypothesis’ when investigating the asymmetric impact of exchange rate.

The development and evaluation of new cultivars of seedless grapes (Vitis spp.) with good yield and adapted to different edaphoclimatic conditions are essential to increase the competitiveness of the productive system. The present work had the objective to characterize the phenology and the yield of the new hybrid seedless grape ‘BRS Melodia’, grown in an annual double cropping system in a subtropical region. The evaluations were carried out during the 2013 summer cropping period and the 2014 off-season cropping period in a commercial area located in Marialva, PR, Brazil. The ‘BRS Melodia’ scions were grafted onto ‘IAC 766 Campinas’ rootstocks, trained in an overhead trellis system spaced at 2.5 × 2.5 m. In both seasons, the duration in days of the main phenological phases of the vines, as well as their thermal demand and their physicochemical and productive characteristics were evaluated. The ‘BRS Melodia’ seedless grapevines presented a cycle of 138 days and yield of 23.85 tons.ha⁻¹ in the summer season, and 121 days and yield of 19.4 tons.ha⁻¹ in the off-season crop. The soluble solids, titratable acidity, and maturation index were 15.1 °Brix, 0.5% tartaric acid and 28.5, respectively, in the summer season and 15.4 °Brix, 0.6% tartaric acid and 25.6 in the off-season crop, indicating a possibility of cultivate this new hybrid seedless grape under an annual double cropping system in subtropical conditions.