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This paper aims to investigate the role of corporate governance on the bank profitability of Indian banks vis-à-vis South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) nations.

For the Corporate Governance Index, the authors examined board accountability, transparency and disclosure and audit committee, while Tobin’s Q, return on equity and return on assets are used to measure the bank’s profitability. The study used a two-stage analysis based on balanced panel data for robust findings. Sample of this study consists of 60 commercial banks from India and 60 banks from SAARC nations for the period of 2009–2021. This study used panel regression and a generalized method of moment approach using the CAMELS framework on banking industry-specific variables to determine their respective impacts.

The findings of this study suggest that board accountability is positive and significantly affects the profitability of banks as indicated by return on assets, return on equity and Tobin’s Q. In contrast, the audit committee has a positive and insignificant impact on return on assets, return on equity and Tobin’s Q, while transparency and disclosure have a negative and significant impact on these metrics. Furthermore, the country dummy result shows a significant positive impact on all the bank performance parameters, implying that Indian banks have the highest degree of convergence with corporate governance as compared to other SAARC nations.

This study provides insight to the regulators, policymakers and financial institutions to evaluate the role of corporate governance in emerging economies. However, the findings of the study should be interpreted with caution, as the results are sensitive to the disparity between India and other SAARC nations' government policies, climatic circumstances and cultural or religious traditions.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first attempt to gauge the performance of Indian banks vis-à-vis SAARC nations using the CAMELS framework approach. Further, findings of this study suggest some novel evidence tying corporate governance quality with the profitability of banks among SAARC nations.

The study compares the socioeconomic development of the South Asian Association of Regional Cooperation (SAARC) to that of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). SAARC was established on December 8, 1985, as a result of former President Ziaur Rahman's efforts to promote the welfare of the people and mutual trust. ASEAN was founded in August 1967 with the goal of accelerating the region's economic growth, social progress, and cultural development while also promoting regional peace and stability. The SAARC countries share problems such as poverty and unemployment. SAARC countries have a GDP per capita four times that of ASEAN. A qualitative analysis based on secondary data pertaining to SAARC and ASEAN reveals that SAARC has not been more successful than ASEAN. National and international conflicts are common within SAARC. SAARC has 22% of the world's population and 3% of the world's economy, and there are enormous opportunities for economic growth and human development.

The purpose of this paper is to examine and compare the indicators of k‐economy to assess whether their status of development helps to improve such indicators in the SAARC. Furthermore, the study also aims to create linkage among the indicators of k‐economy, economic integration process in the SAARC, and the knowledge conversion model.

The paper adopts comparative analyses of the indicators of k‐economy. Indicators are considered under three tracks such as: socio‐economic, economic and ICT infrastructure. Socio‐economic indicators – poverty index, literacy rate, public expenditure on education, R&D expenditure, enrolment of tertiary education, number of researchers in R&D, participation in international agency. Economic indicators – per‐capita real GDP, real GDP growth rate, share of GDP by sector, structure of trade, inflation and unemployment rate. ICT infrastructure indicators – telephone main lines per 100 people, cellular users per 100 people, broadband per 100 people, and internet users per 100 people. The data are obtained from publications, existing reports and web sites of international organizations.

The indicators of k‐economy demonstrate deprived developmental status with increasing trends in the SAARC member countries. As a result, SAARC demonstrates poor growth in terms of knowledge development as compared to other economic integrations in Asia such as APT. There is a considerable variation in most of the indicators among the member states as measured by CV (coefficient of variation) although they lay in low‐income county status. The people of the SAARC countries like to adopt with the ICT easily if the opportunity is provided. The study revealed that the countries in the SAARC should carefully follow the knowledge creation, conversion, implementation and reverse follow‐up process to meet specific indicator based needs of the specific sector of particular members considering their social and financial affordability in the local context.

The study does not use the same year's data for all the indicators applied in this paper due to lack of data availability.

The findings of this paper will be useful to formulate effective policies to improve the indicators of k‐economy in the SAARC. This will be influential for the SAARC to be a competitive integration.

This study provides comparative empirical evidence of variation in the indicators of k‐economy among the SAARC member countries contribute to improve such indicators. The paper also creates linkage among the indicators of k‐economy, economic integration process in the SAARC, and the knowledge conversion model.

The purpose of this paper is to develop and test theory-driven hypothesis on trade costs’ effect of logistics performance (LP) and bureaucratic efficiency, primarily from SAARC (South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation) perspective.

The paper develops hypothesis based on the review of the literature and theory linking LP, trade costs and institutions. The authors test the hypothesis using secondary data sources: World Bank-UNESCAP trade costs database, World Bank Logistics Performance Index (LPI) and Political Risk Service's Political Risk Rating. Fixed-effect approach is used to test the hypothesis.

The influential role of bureaucratic quality on relationship between LPI and South Asian trade costs (inter-SAARC and intra-SAARC) is evident. The results also point out that bureaucratic quality also conditions the effect of different dimensions of LPI on South Asian trade costs. Further, it is found that bureaucratic inefficiency mitigates the effects of LPI on South Asia's trade costs with its proximate trading partners APEC (Asia–Pacific Economic Cooperation) and ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asia Nations).

The analysis is conducted using short span of data. With the availability of long span of data, the understanding of the relationship studies in this paper will improve.

The results suggests policymakers to improve bureaucratic efficiency for utilizing the full potential effect of LPI in deceasing trade costs. The study inspires businesses to act and advocate in favor of reforms in governance system.

This paper is among the first, which investigates the possibility that the relationship between LPI and trade costs depends on the bureaucratic efficiency. It provides a more detailed description of the LPI-trade costs relationship.

Coronavirus, also known as COVID-19, has presented an opportunity to set aside traditional regional collaborations and take responsible leadership to overcome difficult times. This paper aims to explore the current COVID-19 vaccination progress and pandemic status for the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) countries and suggests responsible leadership to combat the COVID-19 pandemic and to think beyond.

This paper offers a viewpoint of the current COVID-19 vaccination among eight SAARC nations. It scrutinises the recent COVID-19 vaccination statistics for the eight South Asian countries based on Web-based analytics and comparative analysis until 28 August 2021.

This paper calls for collaborative decisions and responsible actions for policymakers in the SAARC countries to deal with the COVID-19 vaccination crisis. When South Asian countries are fraught with the increasing number of populations with COVID-19 cases, deaths and acute shortage of life-saving vaccines, it is time for their national and SAARC leaders to strengthen regional cooperations and initiate collaborative actions. The paper demonstrates that implementing responsible leadership can result in favourable outcomes for individuals, organisations, regions and the world. Moreover, this paper suggests SAARC, through responsible actions, has the potentiality to overcome the current crisis of COVID-19 vaccination and enhance the regional sustainability of the South Asian nations.

This paper delivers information about the present developing situation of COVID-19 vaccination in SAARC countries, how the governments and regional leadership are handling and future challenges that have been raised and can be overcome effectively. This paper can be helpful for the policymakers and SAARC leaders for effective public health interventions in the region and to develop a recovery roadmap for the sustainable economic zone.

The purpose of this paper is to examine cross-correlation in stock returns of SAARC countries, conditional and unconditional volatility of stock markets and to test efficient market hypothesis (EMH).

Stock indices of India, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Pakistan are considered to serve as proxy for stock markets in SAARC countries. Data consist of daily closing price of stock indices from 2000 to 2011. Since preliminary testing indicated presence of serial autocorrelation and volatility clustering, family of GARCH models is selected.

Results indicate presence of serial autocorrelation in stock market returns, implying dependence of current stock prices on stock prices of previous times and leads to rejection of EMH. Significant relationship between stock market returns and unconditional volatility indicates investors’ expectation of extra risk premium for exposing their portfolios to unexpected variations in stock markets. Cross-correlation revealed level of integration of South Asian economies with global market to be high.

Business cycles and other macroeconomic developments affect most companies and lead to unexplained relationships. The paper finds stock markets to exist at different levels of development as economic liberalization started at different points of time in SAARC countries.

Correlation between stock indices of SAARC economies are found to be low which is in line with intra-regional trade being one of lowest as compared to other regional groups. Results point towards greater need for economic cooperation and integration between SAARC countries. Greater financial integration leads to development of markets and institutions, effective price discovery, higher savings and greater economic progress.

The paper focuses on EMH and risk return relation for SAARC nations.

This paper aims to unravel the impact of post-pandemic COVID-19 on foreign direct investment (FDI) and its determinants in the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) Countries.

The study utilized four macroeconomic variables includes growth domestic product growth rate (GDPG), inflation rate (IR), exchange rate (ER), and unemployment rate (UR) to assess their impact on post-pandemic FDI, along with two variables control of corruption (CC) and political stability (PS) to measure the influence of good governance. Random effects, fixed effects, cluster random effects, cluster fixed effects and generalized method of moments (GMM) models were applied to a balanced panel dataset comprising eight SAARC countries over the period 2010–2021. To identify the random trend component in each variable, three renowned unit root tests (Levin, Lin and Chu LLC, Im-Pesaran-Shin IPS and Augmented Dickey-Fuller ADF) were used, and co-integration associations between variables were verified through the Pedroni and Kao approaches. Data analysis was performed using STATA 17 software.

The major findings revealed that the variables have an order of integration at the first difference I (1). Nonetheless, this situation suggests the possibility of a long-term link between the series. And the main results of the findings show that the coefficients of GDPG, CC and PS are positive and significant in the long run, showing that these variables boosted FDI inflows in the SAARC region as they are significantly positively linked to FDI inflows. Similarly, the coefficients of UR, IR, ER and COVID-19 are negative and significant.

By identifying the specific impacts of the post-pandemic FDI and its determinants, governments and policymakers can formulate targeted policies and measures to mitigate the adverse effects and enhance investment attractiveness. Additionally, investors can gain a deeper understanding of the risk factors and adapt their strategies accordingly, ensuring resilience and sustainable growth. Finally, this paper adds value to the literature on the post-pandemic impact on FDI inflows in the SAARC region.

This paper is the first attempt to trace the impact of COVID-19 on Foreign Direct Investment and its determinants in the SAARC Countries. Most of the previous studies were analytical in nature and, if empirical, excluded some countries due to the unviability of the data set. This study includes all the SAARC member countries, and all variables' data are completely available. There is still a lack of empirical studies related to the SAARC region; this study attempts to fill the gap.

The paper investigates the dynamic relationship among the stock markets of South Asian Association of Regional Cooperation (SAARC) countries during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Daily time-series data of four SAARC countries: India, Bangladesh, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka, from February 13th, 2013 to March 31st, 2021 are used. The study considers stock prices prior to the blowout of COVID-19 and during the onset of the pandemic. The novel estimation procedure of the autoregressive distributed lag model is used while the results are also confirmed by post-estimation techniques.

The study confirms that the COVID-19 contagion has adversely influenced the stock returns of SAARC countries. The findings signify that the pattern of cointegration has significantly different regularities in the pattern of causality in the long run and short run during the COVID-19 crisis. Overall, the study revealed that the COVID-19 pandemic has weakened the dynamic connection among the stock markets of SAARC countries.

To dampen uncertainties generated by the COVID-19 pandemic, the authorities and central banks should be equipped with efficient strategies and guidelines to cope with the crisis created by the pandemic. Further, governments should focus on assuaging the panic faced by investors and enhancing the confidence of domestic as well as foreign investors. Further, the weakened integration of financial markets during the crisis offers opportunities for speculative and arbitrage gains for investors.

The research work is an innovative effort to analyze the impression led by COVID-19 on the SAARC stock markets integration.

This paper aims to investigate the causal nexus between foreign direct investment (FDI) and economic growth in SAARC countries.

Johansen's cointegration test was employed to examine the long‐run relationship between foreign direct investment and economic growth in SAARC countries. Besides, the vector error correction model (VECM) was employed to examine the causal nexus between foreign direct investment and economic growth in SAARC countries for the years 1970‐2007. Finally, the impulse response function (IRF) has been employed to investigate the time paths of log of foreign direct investment (LFDI) in response to one‐unit shock to the log of gross domestic product (LGDP) and vice versa.

The Johansen cointegration result establishes a long‐run relationship between foreign direct investment and gross domestic product (GDP) for the sample of SAARC nations, namely, Bangladesh, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka. The empirical results of the vector error correction model exhibit a long‐run bidirectional causal link between GDP and FDI for the selected SAARC nations except India. The test results show that there is a one‐way long‐run causal link from GDP to FDI for India.

This paper employed annual data to examine the causal nexus between FDI and economic growth. Therefore, researchers are encouraged to test the FDI‐growth relationship further by using quarterly data.

The SAARC nations should adopt effective policy measures that would substantially enlarge and diversify their economic base, improve local skills and build up a stock of human capital recourses capabilities, enhance economic stability and liberalise their market in order to attract as well as benefit from long‐term FDI inflows.

This paper would be immensely helpful to the policy makers of SAARC countries to plan their FDI policies in a way that would enhance growth and development of their respective economies.

The purpose of this paper is to econometrically investigate the level of financial co-integration of the least developed countries (LDCs) of Asia and Pacific region. In addition, the paper also tested the co-integration of LDCs with the world’s second largest economy “China.” For this, the paper employed the foreign exchange data sets of respective LDCs. It also aimed to assess the dynamic conditional correlation (DCC) between the foreign exchange rates of LDCs and China, and further, examined the past and current level of their co-relational dependence.

The authors created data sets namely LDCs of Asia and Pacific, LDCs of SAARC, LDCs of ASEAN, LDCs of Pacific, LDCs of SAARC and ASEAN, LDCs of ASEAN and Pacific, and LDCs of SAARC and Pacific. In addition, the authors tested the co-integration of these seven groups with China, and thus, making a total of 14 data sets. The analysis was carried out using the Johansen and Gregory-Hansen multivariate co-integration econometric techniques. To assess the DCC, multivariate DCC GARCH model was employed.

It was found that at the intra-regional level, exchange rates of LDCs of SAARC, ASEAN and Pacific were co-integrated and showed the existence of 1-3 co-integrating equations. At inter-regional level SAARC-ASEAN, ASEAN-Pacific and SAARC-Pacific were also co-integrated and showed 1-3 co-integrated equations. However, on the inclusion of China in the study, the degree of co-integration of exchange rate of China with LDCs of SAARC and ASEAN increased, while with Pacific, the result was mixed. Conditional correlation estimated of multivariate DCC GARCH model suggested that except for Afghanistan, there was an upward shift in the correlation dynamics of exchange rates of LDCs with China, post global financial crisis.

Asia and Pacific region constituted of 53 countries, of which 13 were LDCs. Enhanced financial integration among LDCs of Asia-Pacific region and also between LDCs and major economies of the region like China will strengthen economic and financial integration efforts in the region.

The present paper attempted a comparative assessment of the co-movements of the foreign exchange markets of LDCs, the countries which have remained largely neglected in academic discourses on financial integration.