To promote sustainable development and global prosperity, policymakers collaborate on strategically harnessing natural resources and promoting renewable energy consumption to stimulate economic growth. This study examines the resource curse hypothesis across eight South Asian countries, Nepal, Sri Lanka, the Maldives, Bhutan, Pakistan, India, Afghanistan, and Bangladesh, from 1996 to 2022 using the ARDL model, multicollinearity analysis, unit root testing, and cointegration techniques. The findings reveal diverse effects in both the short and long runs. Natural resource rents have varying impacts on economic performance, experiencing negligible or even negative effects in the short term. In contrast, others show positive long-term relationships between natural resource exploitation and economic growth. The analysis of key economic factors, such as human capital, capital investment, energy consumption, and trade openness, shows that each influences economic performance in specific and measurable ways. This study highlights the significant role that natural resources play in shaping economic outcomes, which tends to negatively affect investment in many instances, underscoring the need for efficient resource management to avoid potential economic stagnation. This result may stem from the high upfront costs of renewable energy infrastructure, which outweigh short-term benefits, and the lack of supportive policies for renewable energy projects. This research confirms the presence of the resource curse in South Asian countries, stressing the need for efficient resource management strategies to prevent economic instability and mismanagement. Governments must implement policies that promote trade diversity and openness while fostering sustainable growth through improved resource governance.

Financial development is a driving factor for economic growth and is important in fostering growth. An efficient and effective financial system contributes to economic growth and fosters the performance of other economic measures. This study aims to investigate the influence of financial innovation on economic expansion to understand the correspondence between financial development and economic growth in Pakistan. Augmented Dickey-Fuller (ADF) and Phillips Perron (PP) are used for stationarity. Auto Regressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) and Error Correction Model are employed to analyze the correlation between economic growth and financial development. The finding shows that financial development stimulates economic growth. The research explains that foreign direct investment and personal remittances adversely affect GDP growth. These understandings recommend that although financial development generally promotes, its results can vary extensively and depend on specific context-dependent conditions. Furthermore, applying CUSUM AND CUSUM of square tests to measure model stability convincingly confirms a long-term relation between financial development and economic expansion, disproving the null hypothesis of no co-integration and reinforcing that financial development is essential to domestic economies. Policymakers need to practice these understandings in actionable plans by highlighting financial innovations that advance access to credit and efficiently allocate resources so investment in education and agriculture can maximize economic growth.

Economic growth and financial development are fueled by foreign direct investment. It is curial for emerging markets and developing economies. The relationship between foreign direct investment (FDI) and financial development (FD) in Pakistan between 2001 and 2020 is empirically surveyed in this study. We have taken the Financial development (domestic credit to private sector % of GDP) as our dependent variable while FDI, (net inflows % of GDP), trade openness (TO), population growth (PG) and inflation (INF) as our independent variables. We extracted our all data of our variables from World Bank (WDI). Augmented Ducky fuller (ADF) and Philips Peron (PP) has been used to check the stationarity of data before using ARDL. Furthermore; we have applied Long Run Bound Test in order to know the long run relation. The findings indicate that foreign direct investment (FDI) and population growth (PG) have positively impact on financial development (FD). Additionally, the study finds that, in the case of Pakistan, trade openness (TO) is insignificant to financial development whereas inflation (INF) have a negatively significant. We applied Cusum and Cusum square test for model stability. The results of stability test show that our model is stable as are plots are within the critical bound. The study will help to design such policy that will attain specific goals to enhance foreign direct investment and financial development. It is anticipated that the findings would provide empirical insights and practical consequences for scholars and policy makers.