• Asia pacific journal of information systems
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• v.25 no.1
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• pp.143-161
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• 2015

The South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) nations are a potpourri of diverse religions, races and cultures with rich natural and cultural heritage but yet to tap the full potential of tourism. An investigation into the glorifying heritage of these eight SAARC nations pinpoints towards their rich food and culinary heritage that is yet to be explored to carve them as food destinations that would definitely help ameliorating tourism too. The Global Report on Food Tourism of the United Nations World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) reveals results from a survey on food tourism marketing promotion, from which internet marketing tools, such as websites have been effectively utilized to promote food tourism in a particular destination. (UNWTO, 2012). Sensing the importance of the websites in the promotion of food tourism for any destination, the present study aims at the comparative content analysis of the official tourism websites of SAARC nations to evaluate their performance from the perspective of promotion of culinary heritage on world -wide web. The modified Balanced ScoreCard (BSC) approach is incorporated into the evaluation by taking into consideration four perspectives: technical, user friendliness and site attractiveness, tourism effectiveness and food tourism effectiveness. A set of 88 critical success factors representing these four perspectives is then used to examine the websites. The study reflects on the relative strength and weakness of the tourism websites of SAARC nations in promoting food tourism and as well help suggesting the remedial measures catalyzing the food tourism promotion through websites.

• The Journal of Asian Finance, Economics and Business
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• v.8 no.2
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• pp.747-757
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• 2021

The primary purpose of the study is to investigate the volatility spillover from financial uncertainty (FU) of the United States (US) to the stock markets of SAARC member countries including India, Sri-Lanka, Pakistan, and Bangladesh. The empirical literature overlooked SAARC countries and the FU index. Based on the estimation method, the data of FU is available for three different forecast horizons including 1-month, 3-months, and 12-months. For empirical analysis, monthly data is used from February 2013 to September 2019. EGARCH model is employed to investigate the volatility spillover effects. The findings of the study show that the spillover effect of FU varies with the forecast horizon. The FU with a higher forecast horizon has a significant spillover effect on more countries. The spillover effect of US financial uncertainty is negative in most of the SAARC countries. Bangladesh stock market is influenced by FU with all three forecast horizons whereas the volatility of the Pakistan stock market is not influenced by FU with any forecast horizon. The findings are consistent with the concept of "limited trade openness" in the financial markets of emerging economies. The emerging economies avoid financial market openness to minimize the risk of spillover of other countries.

• Asia-Pacific Journal of Business
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• v.11 no.2
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• pp.1-14
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• 2020

Purpose - The propose of this study is to examine the effect of human development index on mobile telephony diffusion. Design/methodology/approach - This study fits the modidensity of South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) member countries with an econometric Gompertz growth model. The diffusion factors, including the human development index (HDI), gross domestic product (nominal) per capita, fixed-line telephony subscription, and population data of each member country from 2005 to 2018 are considered for the empirical experiment. Furthermore, the mobidensity of randomly sampled countries with very high human development scores (the Republic of Korea, Switzerland and Norway) and high development scores (Brazil and Costa Rica) have been examined with the same process as SAARC members. Findings - We have found a positive but insignificant relationship between the HDI value and mobile telephony diffusion in Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, and Pakistan; a positive and statistically significant relationship at a 99% confidence level in SriLanka; and a negative and insignificant relationship in the Maldives and Nepal. HDI has both positive and negative effects on mobile telephony diffusion, with the nature of effect depending on the profiles of each country. HDI is a diffusion determinant of mobile telephony only for the high human development country groups. Research implications or Originality - This study provides a reference for policymakers, telecommunication stakeholders, and future researchers to design the telecommunication policies and strategies.

• East Asian Economic Review
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• v.19 no.1
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• pp.39-70
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• 2015

This paper examines the effects of foreign direct investment (FDI) on South Asian economies' output growth, utilizing recent panel cointegration testing and estimation techniques. Annual panel data on eight SAARC (South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation) member countries' macroeconomic variables over the period 1960- 2013 are employed in empirical analysis. Using various heterogeneous panel cointegration and panel causality tests, a bi-directional relationship between FDI and growth is found. We find evidence for both FDI-led growth and growth-induced FDI hypotheses for the South Asian economies over the sample period. Individual member countries exhibit heterogeneity in terms of the direction or existence of causality subject to their idiosyncratic economic conditions. Among various regressors, FDI, financial development, human capital, and government consumption show the most significant positive effects on output growth. As determinants of FDI, GDP, financial development, human capital, and government consumption are found significant in the region. The bi-directional causality between FDI and growth is found robust to the inclusion of other control variables and using different estimation techniques.

• Advances in Energy Research
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• v.6 no.1
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• pp.1-15
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• 2019

The objective of the study is to examine the relationship between water resources, energy demand, food production, and environmental pollutants in selected SAARC nations, namely, Bangladesh, India, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka, during the period of 1990-2016. The results show that water, energy, and food (WEF) resources substantially affected air quality in the form of high mass carbon emissions, fossil fuel energy demand, methane discharges, nitrous oxide emissions, and greenhouse gas emissions in these countries. Food production and food deficit largely increase $CO_2$ emissions due to unsustainable production and malnutrition, while land use under cereal production increases $CH_4$ and $N_2O$ emissions. Electricity production escalates $CO_2$ emissions and fossil emissions across countries. The results support the carbon EKC hypothesis, while monotonic increasing function exists in case of fossil fuel energy. The study emphasizes the need to ensure environmental sustainability agenda by adopting cleaner production technologies in WEF resources.

• International Journal of Internet, Broadcasting and Communication
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• v.9 no.2
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• pp.27-36
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• 2017

The world's unique geographical, multilingual, multiethnic, multiracial and multi religious Himalayan country Nepal has more than 100 years history on telephony service and it has been formulating appropriate policy and regulation for the adoption of new technology, introducing the competitive market environment for the overall development of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) infrastructures and application of ICT service and tools for socio-economic transformation. The Nepalese market seems to be continuously growing and having huge demand of mobile telephony and internet subscriptions trend. The ICT infrastructure development in difficult geographical area is quite challenging and thus operators are focusing mobile telephony and mobile internet services. Nepal has been doing its best effort on formulating policy and regulation, adoption key strategies for ICT sector development and at the same time joining hands with international and regional bodies such as ITU, SAARC etc for ICT sector development. Due to geographical diversity, policy and regulatory barriers in some extent, power supply constraints and low affordability from customers on ICT tools and services, Nepal has been facing challenges on ICT infrastructure development. However, the national statistics on ICT, Networked Readiness Index and ICT Development Index show that Nepal has done quite good progress and is keeping its pace on ICT development despite the these challenges. Moreover, there seems to be quite uncovered market segments on internet service and big opportunity on ICT sector development in Nepal in the days to come.

• The Journal of Asian Finance, Economics and Business
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• v.3 no.4
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• pp.57-66
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• 2016

Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) plays a vital role in economic growth of the countries. The present study analyses the impact of the FDI on economic growth of South Asian Association of Regional Cooperation countries by using the pooled data for the period 1990-2014. Neo-classical production function has been used for analysis and getting stock-to-flow estimation, Taylor series approximation has applied. Fixed Effects Model has been used to investigate the impact of FDI, domestic capital, labour and government expenditures on economic growth. It is the evident from the results that both domestic investment and FDI have been a positive effect on economic growth. The study finds that the contribution of domestic private investment is more trustworthy than the contribution of FDI. Consequently, FDI loses its attraction as an engine of growth if the adverse balance of payment consequence of the resulting profit repatriating is also taken into account. The labour has positive and significant association with GDP. The effect of government expenditure is negligible on economic growth. The findings suggest that growth strategy cannot yield the long term benefits if it neglects investments on human capital.