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The increasing threat of global warming and climate change has been a major worldwide concern for more than two decades. As the achievement of sustainable economic growth has gradually become a major global concern both policy makers and researchers have given considerable attention over the years on the link among energy consumption, emissions and economic growth. In this study, following a solovian growth structure, the authors assume that the aggregate output depends on the stock of physical as well as human capital and energy or power. Depending on the sources, the energy can be categorised into cleaner input generated from renewable sources and a dirty input extracted from non-renewable resources having by-products like pollution. This study finds that less-developed countries (LDCs) failing to afford sufficient access to clean energy which in turn has deleterious impact on the human capital which cascades into low level of production, low saving and low per capita output forming a vicious loop. On the other side, the developed nations are better poised with access to clean energy and this is what is reflected in having larger reserve of human capital yielding higher production, higher income, higher saving and higher per capita capital stock in a circular process. This hence posits a clinching picturing divergence in per capital output and income between developed and less-developed nation mediated through degree of access to clean energy and thereof, the capacity to control emission. The convergence situation between the developed and the less-developed nations shows that each ends up with the relative energy mix below the threshold and it is not desirous for the world as a whole. In case of per capita emission, the divergence situation with the global level of emission is bit ambiguous.

The USA–China trade confrontation has become a major concern for all the nations involved in international trade. The retaliatory trade policies taken by both of these major trading nations have generated widespread impact among the trading nations especially on the developing and emerging nations. In this chapter, the macro-theoretic model is developed to show how a trade war can potentially arise in the wake of economic downturn led by some demand contracting force in one of the countries having trade ties and in turn can cause the recession to leap into global turmoil. This may prompt the countries to be more protective and averse to international exchange, thereby paving way to more intense trade frictions among the nations and stoking international macroeconomic propagation. Thus, the present introspection hints at tariff war among the nations engaged in restricted trade with each other being a plausible consequence of macroeconomic fault having cross-country repercussion implication and that in turn becomes more pronounced in the present tariff war leading to more fierce trade frictions among the countries.

This chapter presents an exposition on the dynamics of economic development in relation with endogenous growth in as much as the aggregate output derives from capital which comprises of both human and physical capital. It is based on a growth-theoretic assessment of how nations or individual economies behave in term of whether the poorer ones get to catch up with the richer ones over time on capital stock and per capita income. The model developed herein has been shown to generate steady state equilibrium (of both stable and unstable nature) which constitutes a prime departure from endogenous growth theory. Beside this, the study also empirically examines whether there is any convergence in the last two decades (2000–2019) among developing and less developed countries on mean years of schooling (taken as a proxy as an input into human capital formation) in absolute and as well as conditional terms. It provides empirical evidence of convergence among developing and less developed countries on mean years of schooling over a period of 2000–2019 in absolute and conditional terms.

This chapter is intended to investigate the ramifications of foreign trade regime on the technological front in relation with the impact of between trade liberalization on the process of skill formation in dual economy setting and thereby, the wage dynamics facing the skilled and unskilled labor. The ideation toward this end is owed to the seminal literature concerning the connection between free trade and economic dualism, general and the implication of such nexus on skilling process, in particular. Hence, based on the above dispensation, it may be possible to analyze the consequence of free trade on knowledge economy (wherein, the knowledge essentially purports to technical skill, proficiency in various aspects of work and perhaps, to some extent, the case of innovation) and additionally, what it impinges on welfare and economic development for less developed countries. The theoretical underpinning of the baseline model is based basically on the dualistic structure of the economy with regional specifications of the factors. In this framework, it has been examined that under the condition liberal trade policy in a less developed country, featured by reduced tariff, how it makes up for the formation of knowledge capital in the presence of technology-intensive export sector employed skilled and, in such process, if wage inequality gets exacerbated or otherwise. This is further drawn to investigating the implicit change in the propensity of rural–urban migration of unskilled labor, consequent upon the escalation openness to foreign trade; in what holds out significantly as regards the persistence of economic dualism, in general and balanced growth phenomenon between urban and rural sectors, in particular.

The emerging market economies, in particular, have become victim to the laundering activities which have damaged investment potentials, undermined governance, fostered crime and corruption, and decreased tax revenues. In this chapter, we construct a macrotheoretic framework to analyze money laundering in the form of tax evasion by individuals in an economy in the events of financial autarky and free trade. In other words, our theoretical model allows us to examine if movement from autarky to a state of financial integration whets the degree of financial malpractice like money laundering.

The aspect of economic contrast seen in developing countries shoots primarily from the structure of loan allocation to the micro, small and medium enterprises (MSME) sector, which is essential for job creation and understanding the role of microfinance institutions (MFIs) in meeting the credit demands of the vulnerable but vital sector of less developed economies. The study demonstrates the impact of MSME protection in terms of both fixed and adjustable factor coefficient settings, creating a model of a small open economy with three sectors: a skill-intensive export sector; a capital-intensive import competing sector; and a labour-intensive import competing and intermediate products producing sector. It analyzes the types of protection that aid in the expansion of credit and the alleviation of capital constraints, which further highlights the insufficiencies of tariff protection for the organized sector and simple credit guarantee policies to provide adequate credit flow and thus continued MSME growth. Finally, it considers the importance of priority sector lending policies in ensuring adequate credit distribution to this sector. The results show that protection helps in enhancing flow of credit and thereby works to relax the capital constraint. However, the tariff protection for organized sector may positively or negatively affect the non-traded unorganized sector.

The contribution of the Indian Automobile industry in the economic growth of the country is significantly high. Besides catering to a large domestic market, the automobile industry in India has also captured market shares in many foreign countries successfully in the last few decades. Not only is it an important export-oriented industry of the nation but also the fourth largest exporter of automobiles in Asia. However, in the recent years (2018–2019), it has faced an unprecedented slump. This chapter captures this fact by calculating the growth of car selling for the four quarters of the period 2018–2019 across the Indian states. It primarily tries to find out whether the variation in income and tax levied on petrol and diesel has an impact on the variation in the car selling across the states for the abovementioned time period. It has been proven from our study that higher income of a state has a positive impact, whereas higher tax on petrol and diesel which varies across the states has a negative impact on car selling. Apart from this, this study then distinctively tries to find out whether there exists any neighborhood impact on growth rate of car selling and different tax rate on petrol and diesel on the basis of Moran's Index. It is witnessed that there exists a high level of spatial autocorrelation among the different states in case of growth of a car selling and tax imposition on diesel as well as on petrol. This fact necessitates some degree of regional orientation in formulating an effective policy to revive the automobile industry on the part of the Government.