South Asian Journal of Social Studies and Economics

Technologies of Empire and Nation in Modern India: A Narrative Review of Communication and Infrastructure Historiography

Supriya Sangram Pawar — 2026-07-24

Railways, telegraphy, postal communication, standardised time, radio broadcasting, and large public works were central to the material reorganisation of colonial and postcolonial India. This narrative review examines how historians have interpreted these systems, with particular attention to the relationship between imperial power, technological mediation, everyday use, and nation-building. It brings together scholarship that is often separated among economic history, labour history, media history, science and technology studies, environmental history, and studies of nationalism. Earlier accounts commonly emphasised technological diffusion and the capacity of infrastructure to extend military, administrative, and commercial control. Later work has retained these concerns while demonstrating that technological systems were neither socially neutral nor uniformly effective. Railway workers and passengers, postal runners and traders, journalists, radio listeners, regional commercial associations, nationalist organisers, displaced communities, and technical personnel altered the operation and meanings of infrastructure. The review also examines continuities and discontinuities between colonial projects of improvement and postcolonial development, especially in broadcasting and hydraulic construction. The selected literature indicates that infrastructure did not simply integrate territory or produce national consciousness. It created uneven capacities, differentiated access, new forms of discipline, and opportunities for appropriation and political contestation. The review identifies three priorities for further research: integrated study of interconnected systems rather than isolated technologies; greater use of vernacular, regional, labour, gender, and caste archives; and closer examination of maintenance, breakdown, environmental consequences, and infrastructural exclusion.

Carbon Intensity, Renewable Energy and Economic Growth in Selected SADC Countries: Implications for a Just Energy Transition

Masedi Sesele — 2026-07-21

This study determined the impact of carbon intensity on economic growth in selected SADC countries (South Africa, Botswana, Namibia, and Mozambique). Carbon intensity was defined as carbon emissions per unit of GDP, while the analysis controlled for other traditional inputs (labour, gross capital formation, and renewable energy consumption). The study provides insight into how the transition to a green economy may affect economic growth as a just development goal for SADC countries. The impact of carbon intensity on economic output was estimated within a panel-data regression framework covering the four countries from 1998 to 2020. A Swamy random coefficient regression approach was used to control for slope heterogeneity and estimate cross-section-specific slope parameters. The results showed that carbon intensity had no statistically significant impact on economic growth in South Africa. In Botswana and Namibia, carbon intensity had a negative and statistically significant impact in Model 3, while in Mozambique it had a negative and statistically significant impact in Model 4. Renewable energy consumption had a positive and statistically significant impact on economic growth in South Africa, Namibia, and Botswana. In Mozambique, however, renewable energy consumption had a negative and statistically significant impact on economic growth, largely because of the inefficient use of biomass and waste in supporting sustainable growth. Accordingly, the study provides country-specific policy recommendations, including the accelerated adoption of environmentally friendly production methods and policies that support economic growth in the selected countries.

Disaster Risk and Creative Industry Resilience: Mitigation Policies and Empirical Studies

Didit Welly Udjianto — 2026-07-21

This study examines disaster-mitigation behaviour among creative economy small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in a volcanic hazard-prone area and assesses the associations of demographic capacity, economic resources, technology access, and business-sector characteristics with preparedness. A quantitative cross-sectional survey was conducted in 2023 among 200 creative economy SMEs in Sleman Regency, Yogyakarta, Indonesia. Eligible respondents lived or operated within approximately 20 km of Mount Merapi or had experienced the 2010 eruption, temporary evacuation, or permanent displacement. Respondents were recruited purposively through community, stakeholder, and digital networks. The questionnaire covered respondent profiles, disaster-risk knowledge, information access, technology use, stakeholder networks, and reported mitigation actions. Binary logit estimation showed that 118 SMEs reported undertaking mitigation. Marital status (OR = 12.648; 95% CI: 3.295–48.545), education (OR = 3.221; 95% CI: 1.651–6.282), income (OR = 2.214; 95% CI: 1.555–3.154), technology access (OR = 2.639; 95% CI: 1.160–6.002), and the fashion sector (OR = 2.481; 95% CI: 1.206–5.103) were positively associated with mitigation. The likelihood-ratio test was significant (p < .001). The Hosmer–Lemeshow result indicated acceptable decile-based calibration (p = .3875), whereas the Andrews test indicated imperfect fit under an alternative grouping procedure (p = .0055). The findings support locally targeted policies that combine risk-information literacy, accessible digital communication, business-continuity support, and coordination among government agencies, communities, universities, and SME development organisations.

Measuring Effectiveness of Online Marketing on Consumers' Purchasing Behavior during COVID 19: A Cross-sectional Quantitative Survey

Arifur Rahman Bhuiyan — 2026-07-28

Background: The COVID-19 pandemic had a huge impact on lifestyles and buying behavior. As a result, it amplified the usage of online marketing platforms. After the COVID-19 pandemic, consumers’ dependency did not change, and it remained the same or increased. The outbreak of COVID-19 created significant changes in different ways in people's lives, not only in Bangladesh but also all around the world. Before the pandemic, consumers in Bangladesh barely used online marketing platforms; however, during the pandemic, it has become very common for them.

Aim: This paper intends to understand the efficacy of online marketing on customers' purchasing patterns during the time of COVID. It focuses on the present situation of online marketing and detects obstacles faced by consumers.

Methods: To measure effectiveness, a cross-sectional quantitative survey was conducted with 114 respondents using Google Forms. Respondents shared their experiences of online marketing. Microsoft Excel was used to record the responses, and SPSS was used to do the descriptive statistics, correlation, regression, and analysis of variance.

Results: Most people learned about online marketing platforms through websites, social media, and the internet. During the pandemic, consumers mostly depended on online marketing platforms. The results showed that a large number of consumers buy goods and services using online marketing platforms during the pandemic. It is also found that respondents buy online almost every month, followed by purchasing once every six months. Only a positive correlation was found between timely product delivery and the frequency of online market purchases. The oveall regression model was found to be statistically significant (p-value < 0.05). Additionally, it was observed an adjusted R-squared of 0.311. That means, the covariates of the regression model explained 31.1% of the total variation in the response variable. Respondents also identified various challenges, which include product information quality, satisfaction, and service experiences.

Conclusion: Even though consumers’ purchasing behavior was impacted by online marketing platforms during the time of COVID-19, the findings argue for better service delivery, transparency, product reliability, and enhanced consumer trust. The findings need to be understood in the context of a modest sample size and an uneven age distribution.

India's Services Exports: Structural Transformation and the Rise of Modern Services

Dipak Prakash — 2026-07-28

This study examines the structural transformation of India’s services exports, with particular attention to the emergence and growing dominance of modern services. Using secondary data from National Accounts Statistics, the Reserve Bank of India, UNCTAD, the World Trade Organization, the World Bank, Economic Surveys, and related studies, the analysis covers the period from 1950–51 to 2023, subject to data availability. A descriptive, analytical, and exploratory design is adopted, combining trend analysis, percentage shares, composition analysis, comparative assessment, and exponential growth rates. The findings indicate that India’s services-export structure has shifted markedly from traditional services, including transport, travel, insurance, and government-related services, towards software, business, financial, and communication services. Software and business services have become the principal drivers of export growth. This transformation is associated with economic liberalisation, technological progress, the expansion of information and communication technology, foreign investment, outsourcing and offshoring, a large pool of skilled English-speaking professionals, and the increasing tradability of services. Traditional services have grown more slowly because their cross-border delivery remains relatively constrained and, in some cases, depends on manufacturing performance, infrastructure, and market access. The study concludes that India’s services-export performance reflects a long-term structural shift towards modern, tradable, and knowledge-intensive activities. However, because the analysis is descriptive and based on secondary data, the identified relationships should be interpreted as associations rather than causal effects.

The Effects of Macroeconomic Policies on Economic Growth of Nigeria: A Time Series Analysis

Ibeaja, Uzoma. F. — 2026-07-30

This study examines the effects of macroeconomic policies on economic growth in Nigeria using annual time-series data covering 1980–2022. The analysis focuses on selected fiscal and monetary policy instruments, namely interest rate, exchange rate, government expenditure and government borrowing, and assesses their short-run and long-run relationships with real gross domestic product. An ex post facto research design was adopted, while the Autoregressive Distributed Lag approach was used to analyse the dynamic relationships among the variables after testing for stationarity. The descriptive results show variations in the behaviour of the selected macroeconomic indicators over the study period. The unit root results indicate a mixture of I(0) and I(1) variables, justifying the use of the ARDL framework. The bounds test confirms the existence of a long-run relationship among the variables. The empirical results show that interest rate has an insignificant relationship with economic growth, while exchange rate has a significant negative short-run relationship. Government expenditure has a positive relationship with economic growth, with stronger statistical relevance in the long run. Government borrowing also shows a positive long-run relationship with growth, although short-run effects are mixed. The study concludes that stabilisation policies may support economic growth when fiscal and monetary measures are coherent, disciplined and supported by effective policy transmission mechanisms.