1. Introduction

The previous economic and financial crisis – that prevailed until 2007, which led the economies to an unexpected reversal of satisfactory fiscal, financial and economic conditions – show asymmetric shocks with asymmetric implications. The situation affected the public finance structures of developing as well as advanced economies in an uneven manner. The budgetary, macro-fiscal and macro-financial imbalances arise in the weak economies and propelled sovereign risk premia that made the situation disproportionate. Due to the variations and differences in shock absorbance capacities, individual economic reactions toward crisis were highly asymmetric (Korliras & Monogios, 2010).

The weak structural conditions preceding the crisis combined with the absence of appropriate fiscal outlines (fiscal rules, budgetary procedures and institutions) contributed to the visible fiscal vulnerabilities in different countries. The deteriorating patterns in fiscal dynamics pointed out serious concerns and doubts for the sustainability of public finances of developing countries in the medium- and long-run economic prospects (Popova, Karlova, Ponomarenko, & Deryugina, 2017). The concerns of rollover and refinancing of public debt emerge when the policies of the government become unsustainable. It means a perception of widespread expectation that government and fiscal authorities would have to face short- or medium-term complications in maintaining the creditworthiness of an economy (Baldacci, McHugh, & Petrova, 2011).

It is important to understand the extent and degree of refinancing risks, as the problems of refinancing of public debt are often followed by the fiscal crisis with the prediction of disorders in fiscal adjustment. During the phases of stress in financial markets, the effects of fiscal policies on the economy may be different than the normal times. The duration of financial stress where the economy faces a downward direction can be perceived as “bad times” for the country. Literature suggests that “bad times” are often linked to the phases of financial stress and financial crisis (Afonso, Baxa, & Slavík, 2018). Such situations make it necessary to analyze the effects of fiscal policies and macroeconomic developments during stress phases of the market.

The fiscal vulnerability goes beyond the economic situation, where governments and fiscal authorities implement inappropriate macroeconomic strategies and fiscal policies. This represents an inability of the government to implement suitable policies in the country. It is obvious that poor policies and lack of implementation capacity would give signs of vulnerability (Hemming & Petrie, 2000). The governments may not realize that they become vulnerable on two fronts: first, underlying weaknesses which may not affect the current fiscal outcomes but have the potential to create hurdles for government in achieving the objectives of its fiscal policy; second, such issues and weaknesses might restrict the government’s ability to handle the upcoming challenges for the fiscal position, e.g. a response toward an external shock.

For the surveillance of macroeconomic issues, fiscal vulnerability reflects a situation, where the government and fiscal authorities of a country are exposed to the possibility of failure to attain macro-fiscal objectives: first, a government must try to avoid the high level of the budget deficit and public debt accumulation which directly influences macroeconomic stability in short-run and fiscal sustainability in long-run; second, a government must make sure that its fiscal policy is capable enough to retain reasonable flexibility for in-time and appropriate response toward internal and external macroeconomic imbalances; and third, a government must maintain reasonable and stable tax rates for its revenues generation.

According to the framework of Cottarelli (2011), the risk of fiscal sustainability that is associated with a potential inability of a government to rollover its outstanding public debt depends upon the relationship among (1) existing level and baseline predictions of major fiscal indicators; (2) shocks around the baseline predictions associated with macro-fiscal disruptions, variations in fiscal stance, comprehension of contingent liabilities which could result in worsening of fiscal position (the worsening of fiscal position means an increase in the possibility of refinancing and rollover problems); and (3) the other factors which include non-fiscal variables of a particular country, such as high imbalances in the current account, a large amount of private loans, variations/disturbances in international market sentiments which have the potential to initiate a situation of turmoil.

The fiscal variables must give early warning signals about rollover and refinancing problems, that is how it provides an opportunity to adapt governmental policies ahead of fiscal vulnerabilities which would ultimately result in fiscal stress events. The fiscal vulnerability could be mitigated through a tight fiscal policy, which includes steps like an increase in tax rates or a decrease in government expenditure (Baldacci et al., 2011). The phase, occurrence or an event of financial stress is defined in literature as a situation, where the financial system of the country is under pressure and its primary characteristic of financial intermediation becomes weak. According to Balakrishnan, Danninger, Elekdag, and Tytell (2011), the financial stress period can be classified to have four basic characteristics: huge swings in asset prices; a sudden unexpected rise in risk and uncertainty; the issue of liquidity; and fears about the strength of banking sector.

Recently, the governments are more concerned about the difficulties in policymaking and these difficulties arise from the fluctuating financial cycles. The current problems of systematic risks have emerged as a risk for financial markets and banking sectors. The trend of implementation of suitable macro-prudential policies is in practice for the protection of financial markets (Magkonis & Tsopanakis, 2016). Borio (2017) wrote “Macroeconomics without the financial cycle is very much like Hamlet without the Prince: a play that has lost its main character,” which means that macroeconomic policies are of no use or would be ineffective, as far as the financial cycle and its characteristics are not considered by the governments while devising a policy.

In the context of the previous financial slump, performance of Pakistan's economy and existing literature on the interaction between the macroeconomic phases and structure of the financial system, the current study devotes its focus toward the construction of Financial Stress Index for the case of Pakistan in the light of the available data and aims to answer a query that why the phases of financial stress are linked with economic slump and how it disturbs Pakistan's economy? The current study examines the experiences from the events of financial stress and macroeconomic stages of Pakistan's economy over the period from 1971 to 2020. The events of financial disorders have been acknowledged from the composite index that is based on the variables which have the potential to indicate periods of stress stemming from the foreign exchange market, securities market and the components of monetary policy. The establishment of the causal relationship between economic recessions and financial stress is a difficult challenge. So, the empirical analysis of this study has tried to discourse this matter by clearly picking the common variables and comprehensive estimation techniques mentioned in macroeconomic literature.

The current study has the following objectives:

1. To develop an index of fiscal vulnerability.

2. To develop an index of financial stress.

3. To develop macroeconomic policies index.

4. To test and examine the interaction between fiscal vulnerability, financial stress and macroeconomic policies in the case of Pakistan.

The current study has moved one step ahead and extended the existing body of knowledge in terms of a modeling approach by incorporating three aggregate indices. The three aggregate indices have the capacity to capture the fiscal position, financial conditions and the nature of macroeconomic policies of Pakistan's economy. These are the fiscal vulnerability index, financial stress index and macroeconomic policies index (hereafter FVI, FSI and MPI, respectively). These three indices are important to study the public finance imbalances of Pakistan. These indices present the broad coverage of stand-alone indicators, thus representing the various causes/origins of instability that lead toward the episodes of financial turmoil/disorder, fiscal pressure and macroeconomic disruptions into one single variable.

The study employs a comprehensive set of information for the analysis of data to have a precise and true portrayal of the key risks toward the stability of Pakistan's economy. Furthermore, the said indices are a good representation of the conditions prevalent in the fiscal stance, financial cycles and the macroeconomic situation of the any economy (Magkonis & Tsopanakis, 2014). The set of aggregate indicators, namely, the fiscal vulnerability, financial stress and macroeconomic policies indices have been used as proxies of the swings within the economy, effects of financial cycles and the effectiveness of macroeconomic policies. The innovative approach of constructing these indices can capture the stress volatility spillovers within an economy (Magkonis & Tsopanakis, 2016). The study focuses on the country-level analysis and analyzes potential national spillover effects. Moreover, the indices have the capacity to shed light on the potential channels of instability transmission within an economy.

This study contributes to the development of a fiscal monitoring mechanism, which has the basic purpose of analyzing the refinancing risk of public liabilities. The current study focuses on fiscal vulnerability from a macro-economic perspective. The study has tried to develop a framework for the assessment of fiscal vulnerability in the light of “The Risk Octagon” theory, which focuses on three risk components, i.e. fiscal variables, shocks associated with macroeconomic disruption and non-fiscal country-specific variables. The initial contribution of this work is to develop a framework (an FVI) for an effective and result-oriented macro-fiscal surveillance. Moreover, Hemming and Petrie (2000) emphasized and advised the developing countries to develop their own capacity mechanism for the assessment of fiscal vulnerability in the light of IMF guidelines for vulnerability assessment. The current study tries to fulfil the gap identified in Hemming and Petrie (2000).

Another contribution of this study is to analyze the linkages between fiscal vulnerability and financial stress. Ötker, Downes, and Marston (1999) argued that fiscal vulnerability could be the result of financial sector problems. The suggested linkage between fiscal vulnerability and financial stress has been empirically tested in the current study which is another contribution toward the existing body of literature. The incorporation of aggregate indices in modeling framework and empirical testing of their inter-linkage would have greater implications and advantages for the academicians, the policymakers and the fiscal authorities. The key benefit of indices is that these serve as stand-alone indicators, thus including various sources of instability, which have the potential to lead towards the events/phases of financial turmoil and fiscal disturbances into a single composite indicator.

Moreover, a much-refined set of information has been employed, and a much accurate representation of threats (toward economic stability) can be gained through the aggregate indices. Additionally, the indices mentioned above are a much better representation of the situation prevailing in financial/business cycles and the fiscal stance. This study is the first attempt to assess and analyze the linkages between fiscal vulnerabilities and financial stress through aggregate indices in the context of any developing country. The available literature is mostly on European countries or other advanced countries (G-7, G-20, etc.) or panel datasets of developed countries.

This study emphasizes that the macroeconomic and macro-fiscal dynamics of advanced and developing countries are much different from each other and the same framework cannot be uniformly applied to developing and advanced countries (Chandia, Gul, Aziz, Sarwar, & Zulfiqar, 2018a; Chandia, Iqbal, Aziz, Gul, & Sarwar, 2018b). The study of Schaechter et al. (2014) focused on country groups (advanced countries) for vulnerability assessments and calls for the need to focus on developing countries with an agreement that vulnerability assessment will remain incomplete if it focuses on a group of countries and ignores the individual country analysis.

2. Literature review

3. Methodology

This section provides the detailed mechanism which has been used for developing three indices, i.e. the FVI, the FSI and the MPI. Moreover, the detailed procedure for analyzing the long-run equilibrium relationship among these indices is also the part of the current section.

4. Analysis and discussion of results

The first part of the current study has computed three different indices, i.e. the FVI, the FSI and the MPI in the case of the Pakistani economy. These indices have been used in an empirical model to analyze their impact and the overall role which they have played in the economy of Pakistan. A major benefit of constructing the said three indicators is their ability to capture various causes of volatility and instability in an economy, which have the capacity to lead toward the phases of fiscal strain and financial disorder into a single variable. A more precise illustration of the macroeconomic and financial settings is presented while capturing the effects of fiscal vulnerability and financial stress on macroeconomic policies. Hence, the current study is capable of empirical investigation of the association between fiscal vulnerability, financial stress and macroeconomic policies.

The FVI and FSI have been constructed by following the equal-variance approach, which has been proposed by different studies, which include Cardarelli et al. (2006, 2011) and Magkonis and Tsopanakis (2014). According to this approach, the FVI is a composite indicator, in which every variable is included with its standardized value. It means that the study deducted the mean value and divide it by the standard deviation. The measurement issues and problems have been avoided by using standardized values, while the input of every single indicator has been measured to deviations from its mean value. In the end, equal weights have been assigned to each component contributing toward an aggregate index. Though it is obvious that pertinent literature is rich about the use of various approaches in the aggregation of the index, the equal-variance method is as effectual as any other approach, in terms of the precise and correct representation of the phases of fiscal vulnerability and financial stress.

The study has presented the indices in three different graphs to verify whether our indices work well as appropriate indicators of the prevailing conditions in the financial markets and the macroeconomic situation of the country. The graphical representation of the FVI, the FSI and the MPI has been given in Figures 1–3, respectively.

Figures 1–3 provide the graphical representation of FVI, FSI and MPI for the economy of Pakistan. A composite index number measures the fluctuation, variation or change in the value of a composite number defined as the aggregate of a set of elementary numbers. The said indices represent the fluctuations in the level of fiscal vulnerability and the intensity of financial stress in Pakistan. Highly volatile movements of the indices throughout the examined period, i.e. 1971 to 2020 could be observed. Some variations might be identified, but overall, all the three graphs represent similar kinds of uncertain conditions for the last five decades. The 1980s, for instance in the case of the financial stress index, was a period of extremely stressful conditions in the financial market of the country which lasted until the start of the 1990s. The decade of the 1980s was the decade of martial law and dictatorship in Pakistan which caused the deterioration in economic conditions of the country. Moreover, the effects of the Asian Financial Crisis (the late 1990s) and the global financial crisis (late 2000s) on the economy of Pakistan can be observed through Figures 1–3. Figure 4 presents the integrated graph of all three indices.

It is necessary to briefly analyze the descriptive statistics of the variables which have been employed in the empirical model of the current study before moving toward the first step of testing the stationarity of data through the ADF unit root test. Table 1 presents the descriptive statistics of different variables. The mean value of FVI is positive, while the value for FSI and MPI is negative. All the variables, except FSI, have a negative value of skewness, indicating that the distribution is skewed to the left, with more observations on the right. Table 1 provides the summary statistics for our sample. The mean value of the two variables is negative. It specifies the fact that for every variable the standard deviation value is near to the pseudo standard deviation, the Jarque–Bera test shows the normality of data. The null hypothesis for the test is that the data is normally distributed; the alternate hypothesis is that the data does not come from a normal distribution.

The first step in the process of econometric estimation is to test the stationarity properties of the time series data. For the said purpose, the Augmented Dickey–Fuller (ADF) test has been employed. The purpose of the unit root test is to confirm that any of the variables included in empirical model is not integrated at order 2, i.e. I (2). The results of ADF test are shown in Table 2. The outcomes of the ADF unit root test specify that two indicators, i.e. FVI and FSI are integrated to order one with a significance level of 1%. The third variable, i.e. MPI is integrated to zero-order with a significance level of 1%. Though, none of the indicators is integrated at I (2) level. The results of the unit root test indicate that the primary requisite for applying ARDL technique for the assessment of long-run association among the three indicators included in an empirical model has been fulfilled and it is satisfactory to move toward applying bound test which is the second step in econometric analysis.

The next phase in the estimation of ARDL model is an estimation bound test, for examining the long-run association among the indicators which are part of the empirical model. The lag length while estimating the ARDL approach has been chosen according to the Akaike Information Criterion (AIC). The outcomes of the bounds test for an estimated equation are given in Table 3. The results indicate that the estimated value of F-statistic is larger than the upper level of critical value, which indicate the presence of long-run association in variables.

After the confirmation of the presence of the long-run association in indicators within an estimated model, the long-run and short-run coefficients for the specified model are given in Table 4.

The results given in Table 5 indicate that the coefficient of error correction term (ECT) is statistically significant with a negative magnitude. The value of ECT, i.e. −0.3877 implies that almost 38.77% adjustment takes place upcoming one period as a movement toward achieving equilibrium relationship.

The diagnostic tests include the LM test for testing serial correlation, the White test for analyzing heteroscedasticity and the Ramsey RESET test for examining any misspecification in an empirical model. The results of all the diagnostic test results have been presented in Table 6. The results of the LM test, the White test and the Ramsey RESET test indicate the absence of serial correlation, heteroscedasticity and misspecification in the model. The plot of the cumulative sum of recursive residual (CUSUM) and cumulative sum of the square of recursive residual (CUSUMSQ) of an estimated model indicate that there is no proof of the presence of any misspecification or instability in the structural model during the estimation period. The results of CUSUM and CUSUMSQ tests are given in Figures 5 and 6, respectively.

Table 7 shows the results of the Granger causality test and results indicate the bi-directional causality between FVI and MPI, which implies that fiscal vulnerability and macroeconomic performance, both cause and effect each other simultaneously. The phenomenon is interesting because in practice macroeconomic policies are meant to avoid the situation of fiscal vulnerability. The monetary authorities, fiscal authorities and the governments formulate monetary, fiscal and trade policies for the betterment of an economy and to save the economy from the risks of vulnerability. The causal relationship running from macroeconomic performance index toward FVI represents the failure of the governments to avoid the situation of vulnerability through appropriate macroeconomic policies. The results also indicate uni-directional causality between FVI and FSI. It implies that it is the fiscal vulnerability that causes financial stress in the economy of Pakistan. The vulnerability of the fiscal sector leads toward stress episodes in the financial sector. The results of Granger causality test are unable to prove any causal relationship between FSI and macroeconomic performance index.

The economy of Pakistan has been facing large fiscal deficits and accumulation of public debt burden since 1985. These consistent deficits and debt accumulation are representative of fiscal indiscipline that ultimately results in inflation, the balance of payment crisis and deterioration of macroeconomic performance (Chaudhary, Anjum, & Ali, 1996). The consistent rise in budget deficit paved the way for international lending institutions to propose and advocate structural adjustment programs. The revenue-expenditure structure of Pakistan is stiff and has become a sin which is difficult to identify, measure and alter due to several economic, political and social reasons. The excessive growth in recurring government spending within inflexible revenue collection mechanisms has increased the fiscal deficit in Pakistan. Despite the several efforts by different governments over time, the budget deficit as a percentage of GDP has hardly ever achieved the targets. The persistent fiscal deficits have not only badly affected economic growth but also aggravated the burden of public debt. According to Eisner, “every dollar of deficit of government adds a dollar to debt.”

Furthermore, with an increase in debt burden, the budget deficits have also depreciated the exchange rate, which led to an increase the monetary indiscipline in the economy of Pakistan. In 1996, external debt was over $30bn. Total domestic and foreign liabilities were about 88% of gross national product, which was creating challenges for debt servicing at that time. The study of Chaudhary et al. (1996) warned the governments and fiscal authorities of that time and emphasized taking immediate actions on the part of fiscal authorities and policymakers to avoid any severe consequences. Macroeconomic policies have their roots in political developments in Pakistan over time. The differences and variations in ideological and institutional frameworks have altered the balance between government intervention and the market mechanism, and in the relative importance of the public and private sectors. These shifts in the political economy seem to have a substantial impact on the economic development of the country, savings and investment gap, fiscal developments, the balance of payments situation and the variations in monetary framework and prices. The country has remained a mixed economy, and successive governments with diverse political beliefs/ideologies have abjured fundamental reforms of any kind.

If we shift our discussion to recent years, the economy of Pakistan has been growing at a slow pace for the past two decades. The annual growth in per capita income has averaged 2%, which is less than half of the average of different South Asian countries (World Bank, 2021). The reason for this situation is the inconsistency in macroeconomic policies and a low dependence on investment and exports to boost economic growth. The short spans of rapid consumption-fueled growth led to substantial fiscal and current account deficits, which eventually resulted in tight policies and periodic boom-bust/growth-decline cycles. In the early months of the fiscal year 2020, which spans from July 2019 to June 2020, following one such episode of imbalances/indiscipline (fiscal as well as external), the government entered a 39-month IMF-Extended Fund Facility. The accompanying adjustment measures, i.e. fiscal consolidation, contributed to a decrease of the imbalances over the year and improved macroeconomic stability which only lasted for a few months till July 2021.

According to the macro-fiscal experiences of Pakistan over time from 1971 to 2020, the current study support propositions highlighted in Easterly (2002) that governments of debtor economies have preferences for current consumption more than the private sector and the creditor economies. The study also states that in such economies, governments would have poor policies, plan and strategies about imposing taxes on the private sector. Hence, these are the poor macroeconomic policies that create the accumulation of public debt that in turn increases the degree of vulnerability in an economy. The negative impact of fiscal vulnerability and financial stress is the function of the macroeconomic performance of the country. Therefore, it can be justified that the healthier policies in terms of less fiscal deficit, less inflation rate and increased trade openness; the possibility that the degree of vulnerability would not be able to impact the macroeconomic performance of an economy increases. These findings suggest that the bad and varying macroeconomic policies of Pakistan are accountable for fiscal vulnerability.

Generally, the results of the current part emphasize the significance of fiscal vulnerability and financial stress in the developing country, i.e. Pakistan. More specifically, the negative impact of the said indicators on the macroeconomic performance create/highlight another significant motive to emphasize strategies and policies with a capacity to comprehend their effect. The inefficiency of fiscal authorities and the government in Pakistan to formulate appropriate macro-fiscal plans and possible execution of fiscal rules indicate that they have not realized the presence of the intricated dynamic association among the fiscal sectors, financial sector and macroeconomic policies. Such developments highlight the need for high carefulness and corrections on fiscal stance. This would lead toward a safe fiscal position that would be helpful in controlling the fiscal deficit, inflation and reduction of public debt. Additionally, it would offer room for betterment in poor macroeconomic phases when fiscal policy expansions are necessary to avoid the impact of a financial market failure for sustainable economic activity.

5. Conclusion

The current study has examined the interaction between macroeconomic policies, fiscal vulnerability and financial stress in the case of Pakistan from 1971 to 2020. The current macroeconomic conditions across the globe after the global credit crisis show that the solitary examination of the fiscal and financial conditions is not adequate for a comprehensive analysis of the episodes/phases of global crisis and their effects on individual economies’. For evaluating the impact of fiscal and financial sector shocks on macroeconomic policies, the study has developed a fiscal vulnerability indicator, financial stress indicator and a macroeconomic policy indicator for the economy of Pakistan. In this way, one can analyze and examine the level, and the progress of the usual circumstances of fiscal and financial sectors. The indexes accomplish the desired objective in a good manner, as these successfully capture previous and current crisis phases/episodes.

The salient feature of the current study is that it has analyzed the impact of the vulnerability of an economy and stress in the financial sector on the state of macroeconomic policy in Pakistan through a fiscal vulnerability index, financial stress index and an MPI. In the empirical literature on the said issue, several studies have tried to develop financial stress indices on an individual as well as geographical levels. However, there is barely any literature that has concentrated on the impact of fiscal vulnerability and financial stress on the outcomes of macroeconomic policy. The current study has examined the relationship among fiscal vulnerability, financial stress and macroeconomic policies for the economy of Pakistan. The current study is fresh in the body of knowledge, as it has studied the relationship of among fiscal vulnerability, financial stress and macroeconomic policies from 1971 to 2020.

The analysis is consists of four different econometric approaches, which have been used to estimate the relationship among three composite indicators. As an initial step, the ADF unit root test has been employed to verify the presence of unit root in three variables, i.e. the FVI, the FSI and the MPI. The results of the ADF unit root test show the existence of unit root in the FVI and the FSI, at the level I (0); however, the MPI was stationary at I (0). The data was stationary at the first difference, and two indices become stationary at level I (1). The estimations of the bound test of ARDL indicate the presence of a long-run equilibrium relationship between the FVI, the FSI and the MPI. Furthermore, the study used error correction estimates for measuring the short-run behavior of the three composite indices. Error correction model measures the short-run performance of long-run association without losing the long-run association. The estimations show the correction of variables in upcoming years because of disequilibrium in the previous period. It implies that adjustments are significant, and the composite indicators adjust to sustain their relationship.

The study has also applied the Granger Causality test to investigate the direction of causality between the three indicators, i.e. the FVI, the FSI and the MPI in Pakistan from 1971 to 2020. The test results indicate that there exists bi-directional causality between the FVI and the MPI, as p-values and F-statistic are significant at 1% level, which means that both cause and affect each other. There exists a unidirectional causality between the FVI and the FSI and causality runs from the FVI toward the FSI. It implies that it is the vulnerability of the economy that poses the stress on the financial sector in the case of Pakistan. Moreover, the study indicates the uni-directional causality running from the MPI toward the FSI. However, the causal relationship is very weak between the MPI and FSI.

The current discussion highlights that fiscal vulnerability, financial stress and macroeconomic policies have a strong equilibrium relationship in the economy of Pakistan. It can be concluded that an increase or decrease in fiscal vulnerability significantly affect macroeconomic policies in a long run in the context of Pakistan and vice-versa. On the other hand, fiscal vulnerability creates pressure on the performance of the financial sector, which ultimately results in a stressed financial sector in Pakistan. Though the macroeconomic policies have been showing a friendly attitude toward the financial sector of Pakistan since 1990s. The government of Pakistan initiated policies related to the liberalization of the financial sector especially banks and financial markets in 1990 and put an end to the fixed exchange rate regime in the late 1980s. The vulnerable economic condition of the country is a dilemma for the politicians, policy makers, academicians and common people of Pakistan. The ultimate sufferers are the poor and common people of Pakistan, who face high inflation, rise in interest rates and increase in taxes due to budget deficit, current account deficit and accumulated debt burden.

The current study has comprehensively accommodated the macroeconomic policies, fiscal structure and financial sector dynamics of Pakistan; however, there is a need to link these issues with social challenges, i.e. social security framework, problems in bureaucratic structure and other institutional issues. The current study could be helpful in initiating the research on the potential reforms which could be possibly helpful for overhauling the macroeconomic ills and fiscal structure of the economy, which could solve the problems of the common people of Pakistan. Though there is an abundance of empirical research (Chandia et al., 2018a, b; Chandia et al., 2019) suggesting the need for reforms in the fiscal structure of the economy, the actual frameworks and experimental results are missing which could be helpful in generating real-time results at macro-level.