scholarly journals U.S. Policy and Energy Security in South Asia: Economic Prospects and Strategic Implications

Asian Survey ◽  
2007 ◽  
Vol 47 (4) ◽  
pp. 657-678 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lawrence Sááez

South Asia's future energy consumption will be driven by continuing economic growth and demographic trends. The likely inability of India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh to meet burgeoning energy demands poses a threat to their energy security. U.S. policy in Asia constrains the ability of South Asian countries to enhance their energy security, either indigenously or through imports. This may have unintended consequences for U.S. strategic interests in South Asia in particular, and in Asia in general.

Author(s):  
Debasish Nandy

Energy security and economic growth are interrelated. South Asia is at a critical juncture today. Development is the overriding priority for the region because of the high incidence of poverty, but energy is proving to be a critical constraint. The entire region is suffering from an acute energy crisis. Firstly, South Asian countries are confronted with the huge challenge of securing energy to sustain rapid economic growth and meeting the rising aspirations of the people. Secondly, the region is home to a huge population that lacks access to clean forms of energy. A large section of the population, particularly in rural areas lacks access to electricity and relies on the traditional use of biomass for cooking. With limited domestic energy sources, most South Asian countries are also highly dependent on energy imports, particularly crude oil, from other regions. Thirdly, on the issue of energy security SAARC, countries need to establish a platform of common interest. There are three objectives of this chapter: exploring new alternatives of energy sources of South Asian States, searching for relationship between energy security and economic growth, and re-thinking about an alternative policy options regarding energy security in South Asia.


2020 ◽  
pp. 097491012097480
Author(s):  
Muhammad Ibrahim Shah

Regional economic integration is the key to achieving prosperity and stability. However, intra-regional trade in South Asia accounts for not more than 5%–6% of their total trade. This study aims to examine the role played by regional economic integration in determining the economic growth of South Asian countries over the period 1980–2015. Since shocks in one country may affect another country in the region, this is taken into account in the article by employing methodologies that are robust to cross sectional dependence. Specifically, continuously-updated and bias-corrected (CupBC) of Bai et al. (2009) and Dumitrescu–Hurlin panel causality test (2012) have been employed to estimate long-run coefficients and determine the direction of relationship among the variables, respectively. The findings suggest that economic integration increases economic growth significantly in this region. However, contrary to popular belief, both democracy and human capital are negatively related to economic growth. Bidirectional causality is found between economic integration and democracy, regional integration and human capital, democracy and human capital and, democracy and labor. This study also presents several policy implications for South Asian countries.


2021 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 200-211
Author(s):  
Ansar Abbas Shah ◽  
Muhammad Sajjad Hussain ◽  
Muhammad Atif Nawaz ◽  
Mazhar Iqbal

Environmental degradation is the most prominent area nowadays, especially in developing counties where high renewable energy consumption and population growth deteriorate the atmosphere of the country. Thus, the current study investigates the nexus among renewable energy consumption, economic growth (EG), population growth, foreign direct investment (FDI), and environmental degradation in South Asian countries. The covariance matrix estimators that are developed by “Driscoll and Kraay” are used in this study. The primary property of this estimator is that it does not account for the cross-sectional dependence; thus, it provides substantial, robust outcomes among the cross-sectional units while in the presence of cross-sectional dependence. The data was collected from the World Development Indicators (WDI) from 2001 to 2019. The findings exposed that positive nexus among the population growth, FDI, and environmental degradation while renewable energy consumption and EG has negative nexus with environmental degradation and also not supported the EKC hypothesis in South Asian countries. These findings suggested that the regulators should develop policies that reduce environmental degradation in the presence of high EG, energy consumption, FDI, and population growth.


2019 ◽  
Vol 5 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Muhammad Zia Ullah Khan ◽  
Muhammad Khyzer Bin Dost ◽  
Muhammad Wasim Akram ◽  
Pirzada Sami Ullah Sabri

This study plays its role in the literature by investigating the impact of energy consumption on agriculture sector, and environmental cleanliness on Gross Domestic Product, in five South Asian countries from the period of 1990 to 2015. Energy is now becoming a challenge for the South Asian countries especially country like Pakistan. Developing countries are in a race to gather more and more resource for the production of energy. The main objective of research is to examine the short-run and long-run relationship between economic growth and energy consumption on agriculture sector of economy in South Asian countries. Granger causality test and Error correction model is employed to get the results. The empirical results showed the presence of co-integration among the variables and it indicates gross domestic product has a positive relationship with energy consumption in agriculture sector and environmental cleanliness. Granger causality results showed that unidirectional causality is present between gross domestic product and agricultural sector while no causality is present among environment cleanliness.


Author(s):  
Amir Manzoor

Several far-reaching reforms to the financial sector were introduced by South Asian countries in early 1980. The nature and progress of these reforms vary from country to country. These reforms covered a number of areas such as promoting competition in the financial sector, developing payment and settlement systems, and strengthening regulations. So far, these reforms have not only helped South Asian countries to significantly raise domestic savings, attract foreign capital, and raise economic growth rates but also provided greater economic integration of South Asia. This chapter performs a close re-scrutiny of the reforms implemented in South Asian countries. Suggestion for further reforms for building efficient, competitive, and resilient financial sector is also provided.


2018 ◽  
Vol 7 (3) ◽  
pp. 9
Author(s):  
Muhammad Tahir ◽  
Khizar Hayat ◽  
Nisar Ahmad

The study empirically investigates the influence of Financial Development on Economic Growth in South Asia by using six indicators of Financial Development i-e: Gross Fixed Capital Formation (GFCP), Broad Money (M2), Domestic Credit to Private Sector (DCPS), Market Capitalization (MC), Trade Openness (TO) and Foreign Direct Investment (FDI). While Economic Growth is measured by Real Gross Domestic Product per Capita (GDP). For this purpose, the study used panel data from “World Development Indicators” for the period of 1980-2015 of six major South Asian countries i.e. Pakistan, India, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Sri Lanka and Nepal. These countries have common feature of being under-developed. The study shows its uniqueness by considering six under-developed South Asian countries and applying three result estimation techniques i-e: Pooled Group Mean (PMG), The Mean Group (MG) and The Dynamic Fixed Effect (DFE). Different results were produced through these three techniques. Final conclusion was drawn on the basis of Hausman test; that is PMG model estimation technique. Unit root test was also applied to check stationarity. The long run results of PMG model show significance of all independent variables, while short run results state insignificance of all independent variables except FDI. The results are consistent with the literature. Along with other recommendations, the study, especially, focuses that the trade barriers should be removed among South Asian countries as trade openness has positive influence on economic growth.  It will result in expanding the magnitude of growth.


2020 ◽  
Vol 08 (01) ◽  
pp. 2050003
Author(s):  
Hongzhong FAN ◽  
Shujahat Haider HASHMI ◽  
Yasir HABIB ◽  
Minhaj ALI

The issue of urbanization has gained much importance over the last few decades due to its significant influence on economic growth and environmental quality, especially in developing countries. The non-linearity puzzle has been a long-debated issue, and prior studies provide mixed evidence. This study addresses the issue of urbanization using the measure of urban agglomeration and investigates the non-linear relation between urbanization and CO2 emissions at the regional level. The South Asian region represents approximately one-fourth of the world population and its urbanization needs to be addressed properly. This paper uses the annual data over the period of 1974–2014 for four South Asian countries, namely, Pakistan, India, Bangladesh, and Nepal. The panel cointegration tests establish the long-run relation between urbanization, urban agglomeration, economic growth, trade openness, energy consumption, financial development, and CO2 emissions. The fully modified ordinary least squares (FMOLS) model further confirms the existence of Environmental Kuznets Curve (EKC) in South Asia. Moreover, urbanization has an inverted U-shaped relation with CO2 emissions, while urban agglomeration has a U-shaped nexus with CO2 emissions for overall sample. The bidirectional causal relationship has also been confirmed between urbanization and CO2 emissions, between urban agglomeration and CO2 emissions, between financial development and CO2 emissions both in the long-run and short-run. On the other hand, unidirectional causality runs from economic growth, trade openness, and energy consumption to CO2 emissions in the long-run. The rising trend of urban agglomeration in metropolitan cities in South Asia is adversely affecting the environment. The current study has implications for policymakers and respective governments to adhere to more stringent urban planning.


2021 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 58-66
Author(s):  
Saddam Hussain ◽  
Chunjiao Yu ◽  
Liu Wan

The relationship between energy consumption and economic growth is a hot issue in today's society. This paper aims to empirically verify the relationship between energy consumption and economic growth. This article analyzes the relation of energy consumption with the economic growth taking the case of South Asian countries (Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, and Nepal) along with the macroeconomic determinants that affect the total economic growth – FDI growth, CPI rate and population growth in order to avoid omitted variable bias and misleading results. The time span of this study covers the period of 1980–2019. To examine the significant relation of these determinants and impact of energy consumption on economic growth, In-pooled regression, Fixed-effects, Bidirectional fixed effect, Random-effects, and GLS estimation regression model are used. The estimated results show a positive correlation of energy consumption and all other economic determinants with economic growth except CPI, where there is a negative correlation founded.


Author(s):  
Sudhakar Patra

The present chapter seeks to analyze the trend and growth of energy production, supply, growth, consumption and trade in South Asian countries based on data from 1971 to 2011 collected from World Bank data base, South Asia Development reports, Energy Outlook, ADB database. While India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh account for the major natural gas and coal resources, Bhutan and Nepal have large hydropower resources. The study suggests that South Asian countries need enhanced regional energy transfer to leverage economies of scale through a more vibrant intra and inter regional energy trade structure. Mobilizing financial resources to develop the necessary energy infrastructure is a major challenge to enhance energy security in the region. Therefore, South Asian countries need to develop policies that will attract investment in the region.


2012 ◽  
Vol 4 (5) ◽  
pp. 277-286 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anupam Das ◽  
Muhammad Akhtaruzzaman .

This study employs the panel cointegration and pooled mean group (PMG) techniques to examine the long run relationships between energy consumption and GDP for 5 South Asian countries from 1981 to 2009. Unit root and panel cointegration tests find a long run relationship between energy consumption and GDP after allowing for country-specific effect. Furthermore, we use the PMG technique to identify the magnitude of this relationship. Our results are consistent with the theory that suggests a role of energy use in GDP. On average, a 1% increase in energy consumption leads to a 0.61% increase in the long run GDP in South Asia from 1981 to 2009. Hence, it is apparent that energy is an important component to maintain the economic activities in these countries. These results have important implications for policy makers of South Asian countries which have experienced magnificent growth performance along with a sharp rise in consumption demand for energy in last few decades.


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