Purpose - This research is aimed to investigate the impact of the Information and Communication Technology (hereinafter ICT) development index and ICT investment on Indonesian economic growth. Research design, data and methodology - The data used consist of ICT development index, government expenditure on ICT sector, and economic growth from 33 provinces in Indonesia from 2012 to 2015. Based on the Networked Readiness Index published by the World Economic Forum (WEF), Indonesia was ranked 80^th among 142 countries in 2012 and had climbed 64^th in 2014. This indicates that the businesses in Indonesia have adopted ICTs to increase productivity and expand their activities. Panel data regression analysis is performed to reveal the change of the impact over time in each of the provinces. Result - The ICT development index and government expenditure for ICT have a positive effect on the economic growth of all provinces, although the impact is different in each of the provinces. There is a digital gap between the provinces, especially the large digital gap occurring with DKI Jakarta. The provinces of Eastern Indonesia such as NTT and Papua are still relatively slow in development of ICT. Conclusions - ICT development index and allocation of local government expenditure for ICT have significant effect on economic growth. ICT development index has a bigger role in increasing economic growth.

Purpose: Omni-channel retailing is a new retail phenomenon. Consumers in the omni-channel environment do not rely on one channel but integrate different channels from the same retailers freely during a particular shopping journey. The purpose of this study is to better understand omni-channel shoppers in the fashion retailing context. The present study uses consumer characteristics -- fashion innovativeness, technology innovativeness, and fashion purchase involvement -- as determinants predicting consumers' omni-channel shopping intentions for fashion products. Research design, data, and methodology: Data were collected from 403 U.S. consumers, and the Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) was performed to test proposed hypotheses. The survey for this research consisted of three parts. The first part measured consumer traits in terms of their innovativeness and purchase involvement. The second part was designed to measure consumers' omni-channel shopping intentions, and the third part gathered consumer demographic information. Results: The findings confirmed that fashion innovativeness, technology innovativeness, and fashion purchase involvement positively affected consumers' omni-channel shopping intentions. Conclusions: Fashion retailers should integrate various customer touchpoints and offer mobile-enabled technologies to boost consumer traffic to both online and offline stores. They also need to create a shopping environment that is optimized for customer engagement in various shopping processes and allow them to explore different shopping channel options for best purchase decisions.

Purpose - With rapid population aging in Korea, changes in the population structure will result in a rise in the fiscal burden. This paper investigates the effects of population aging on fiscal spending based on Korea's province data and country panel data from the OECD. Research design, data, and methodology - We use province-level fiscal data from Local Finance Integrated Open System and the Korean Statistical Information Service and also collect country panel data from the OECD. To investigate the relationship between population aging and fiscal expenditures, our analysis uses the fixed effects model. Results - The empirical analysis based on Korean local finance and country panel data show that population aging has a positive impact on social welfare expenditures and it also has a positive impact on spending related to children and the elderly, implying that population aging may lead to an increase in fiscal spending via an increase in social welfare expenditures and spending related to children and the elderly. Conclusion - These empirical results suggest that countries like Korea that expect to experience rapid population aging need to pay more attention to prepare for the expected increase in age-related spending in the near future.

Purpose - The purpose of the research is to assess the current state of cryptocurrency in Vietnam and to provide several solutions and recommendations to the Government, the State Bank of Vietnam (SBV) and other relevant agencies for monitoring, managing, and controlling cryptocurrency effectively and efficiently. Research design, data and methodology - The study is based on the assessment and analysis of cryptocurrency in the world and the real situation of cryptocurrency in Vietnam in order to provide solutions to the controllable development of operation of this currency. Results - The study indicates the current operations of cryptocurrency in Vietnam and provides several suggestions to effectively control this currency. Conclusion - According to the study on current cryptocurrency and the situation of cryptocurrency in Vietnam, the author has proposed a number of solutions to provide suggestions to manage and develop the operations of cryptocurrency in a most practical manner. The governments of many countries in the world, including the Government of Vietnam, need more time as well as appropriate technology improvements to take advantage of these new digital currencies; therefore, they still need to ensure safety in compliance with the control and regulatory capabilities of the central government and central banks.