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Nanotechnology is nowadays very much successful in producing specifically functionalized nano-sized particles. In this work, copper nanoparticles were prepared by reduction method which is greener and environmentally suitable, cheap and best as compared to other conventional methods, particularly in the context of COVID in globalized world. The formation and size of copper nanoparticles was evidenced by the X-ray diffraction and transmission electron microscopy. The very high surface area of 35–50 m²/gm and very small crystallite sizes of 5–15 nm of these metal nanoparticles is mainly responsible for their effective involvement in removal of carbon dioxide gas as one of major hazardous pollutants from the environment. This chapter, as its main objective, mainly focuses on utility of nano technology and its beneficiary in creating a sustainable environment in economic world. Apart from laboratory experimental procedure and characterizations for preparation of copper nanoparticles, appropriate research methods such as simple statistical, econometric tools and mathematical tools have been used for economic analysis. However, as major findings of the results, developed countries have been successful in maintaining a sustainable human development, in spite of having higher per capita income (PCI) growth as compared to the role of developing countries with lower PCI in this global world.

The research analyzes the convergence of several socioeconomic indicators in a sample of 137 countries over the period 1990–2019. Applying log t-convergence tests, it finds that socioeconomic indicators’ convergence is divergent. Measuring seven different indicators, there are only two indicators of life expectancy and access to the internet converging at the global level, while the remaining indicators of gross domestic product per capita (GDPP), foreign direct investment (FDI) inflow, urbanization, fertility, and CO₂ emissions do not. An extension to sub-sample analysis by levels of income and clustering convergence clubs is employed to confirm the heterogeneity and complexity of development pathways among countries. There are several insights for researchers and governments regarding future research and policies, especially for the development of developing countries.

Education transmits knowledge and abilities that are essential for any society’s socioeconomic progress. It improves the quality of life by providing both individuals and civilizations with several advantages. In this regard, women’s education is critical as they spend longer time with children than men. Despite the fact that education plays an immense role in overall wellbeing of society, in India, there are fewer educational opportunities available to young women than to young men. The gender bias that persists in Indian education and professional training is evident even in the richest countries in the world. In this regard, this study focuses on this intergenerational transmission of knowledge from the mother to her progenies in Karimganj District of Assam using the data from the household level primary survey. This study examines mothers’ educational profiles and ascertains the extent to which their education influence their children’s educational attainments. The results show that woman’s education has a direct role in enhancing the overall welfare of children and, thus, indirectly improves the economic status of the family. The results provide definite causal connections between a mother’s education and children’s educational attainment.

Reducing income gap and enhancing welfare of people can be achieved through improved performance regarding socio-economic indicators, which can support sustainable development. People living in villages tend to migrate to the cities with the hope of enhancing their income. People living in cities and income gap among the people in the cities are expected to increase further. Enhanced living conditions in villages can reduce the need for this migration and increase welfare of the people in the villages. This chapter aims to examine drivers for sustainable smart villages and ways for enhancing and supporting their effectiveness in socio-economic development, in enhancing welfare and living conditions of people living in villages, and in reducing income gap between urban and rural people. This chapter investigates potential and roles of sustainable and smart villages in enhancing welfare and living conditions of people living in villages. Furthermore, this chapter emphasises the villages’ roles in sustainable development as well as importance of transformation of villages into the sustainable and smart ones and establishment of sustainable and smart villages so that convergence, social inclusion and socio-economic indicators can be supported. This chapter explains drivers for transformation of the villages into the sustainable and smart ones as well as establishment of new sustainable and smart villages. This chapter provides recommendations for sustainable and smart villages effective in contributing to sustainable and socio-economic development. This chapter can be useful to urban planners, construction industry stakeholders, policy makers and researchers.

The financial system of an economy, especially banking, facilitates efficient allocation of resources from savers to borrowers for productive investments, and thus promotes economic growth. State-wise bank credit in India shows a growing divergence, despite the aim of central planning to reach a degree of convergence in macroeconomic performance over time. This chapter analyzes how diverging bank credit affects macroeconomic performances of the Indian states, through an alternative approach of composite indicators-based rankings of states adopting the methodology of TOPSIS (Technique for Order Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution) that is used in operations research or more specifically MCDM (multiple criteria decision-making). A composite indicator of the states’ annual macroeconomic performances has been constructed taking indicators of output growth, per capita state domestic product, inflation, and fiscal indicators for years 2006–2018. States are ranked by both macroeconomic performance and bank credit to states, and the correlation between the two indicators, known in the literature to be interlinked,is studied here to understand how the availability of credit or lack of it has influenced State level macroeconomic development in India. The results thus show that wealthier and better performing states continue to attract the larger chunk of bank credit, while weaker states have not been able to catch up. An important policy implication would be to place even more emphasis on higher levels of credit growth for weaker states, particularly infrastructure credit, to achieve a degree of income convergence throughout the Indian economy.

The world has witnessed rapid changes as far as growth and convergence of economies are concerned. Over the past decades, many less-developed or developing economies have been catching up with the industrialized economies; a few have even surpassed them, as far as growth is concerned. Also there have seen emergence of new economic powers in the world, where growth rates of these upcoming economies have not only converged with that of developed economies, but have gone ahead of them as well. In this chapter, by the help of beta convergence and sigma convergence, an attempt has been taken to find out the nature and causes of convergence among few developed and developing economies in the last three decades, that is, after 1990, which also covers the period of post-globalization in these developing nations. Main concerned variables are Per-capita GDP, Life expectancy at birth and Foreign Direct Investment. Such analysis would help to find how far globalization has been effective or helpful to the developing economies, as far as catching up with developed economies is concerned. The results suggest that in the post-globalization era, nations have been converging both absolutely as well as conditionally and the variance is also diminishing, which indicates the presence of sigma convergence as well.

It is an established document at the global level that more environmental pollution is associated with more growth of the output for some economies, and on the other hand, more pollution is associated with low growth of output in some other economies. Having the scenario of massive climate change, the global policymakers have been experimenting with drastic reductions in the use of energy and fossil fuels within the target year on 2030 for some countries and 2050 for other countries. The negative impacts of the environmental pollution and the pollution abating targets influence the decision-making processes of the households and business houses around the world. There is thus a potential nexus between the emissions of different greenhouse gases (GHGs) and consumers' and business sentiments in taking optimum decisions. Under this background, this chapter aims to investigate whether GHG emissions and consumers' and business sentiments have any association and interplays for the period 1998–2019 using appropriate econometric exercises. The correlation shows positive results with consumers' sentiments in some developing countries but negative results with business sentiments in some developed countries. Further, there are long-run relationships of GHG with consumers' sentiments and business sentiments in some countries with the mixed results of causal interplays.

Low interest rates around the world due to adaptive monetary policy regulations for some time a source of concern for the banking sector and depositors of the bank. In this environment, interest rates have raised concerns about nominal deposit interest rates which cannot be lowered below zero without destroying bank customers. Bank loans are becoming less vulnerable to lower interest rates on deposits approaching zero, indicating that the financial channel is weakened when interest rates are close to zero. Demographic pressures associated with longer life expectancy, China's gradual integration into global financial markets and changes in supply and asset requirements are attributed as reasons for low interest rates. Volatility of CPI inflation, interest rates on bank deposits attracting income tax and discontented depositors due to lower rates are cited as reasons for the suffering of bank depositors. This chapter thus discusses the impact of negative rate on economic growth and bank customers besides discussing the future trends of negative interest rates.