The 13th South Asian Economic Students’ Meet (SAESM) held in Kathmandu, Nepal from January 29 to February 3 brought glory to Sri Lanka and the University of Colombo with the exceptional performance of young economists.
Naveen Wickremeratne, an undergraduate at the Department of Economics, Faculty of Arts of University of Colombo won the Best Research Paper Award for the first time in the history of SAESM.
He won the best research paper award named after two prestigious economists in South Asia, Mahbub Ul Haq and Nobel Prize winner Amartya Sen. The best research paper among South Asian undergraduates was chosen out of more than 40 research papers presented by undergraduates representing seven South Asian countries under six themes.
Wickremeratne, who is a final year undergraduate, competed under theme six ‘Infrastructure, Connectivity and Trade’ and his award winning research was titled ‘Impact of Infrastructure and Trade Openness on Economic Growth in South Asia – A Panel Study’.
His research adopted a quantitative method using econometrics modelling to measure the impact on infrastructure and trade openness on South Asia and Naveen has developed an infrastructure index to estimate the impact of infrastructure on economic growth in South Asia.
In addition to the victory of Wickremeratne, an undergraduate following Entrepreneurship and Management Degree Programme at Uva Wellassa University, Chathuri Nadeesha was the co-recipient of the award for best research paper under the theme four ‘Global Value Chains in South Asia’.
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