Purpose: This study measures the effect of Information Technology (IT) on both cost and profit efficiency of State-owned Commercial Banks (SOCBs) in Bangladesh. Research design, data and methodology: Yearly Non-IT and IT data are collected from the annual report of SOCBs of Bangladesh from 2008 to 2017. Variable Return to Scale (VRS) cost Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) and Profit DEA are employed to measure the efficiency of SOCBs and Ordinary Least Square (OLS) is used to investigate the impacts of ICT components on operating cost and profit efficiency for SOCBs. Results: The average cost efficiency (74.4%) was noticed higher than the average profit efficiency (20.6%) for SOCBs. SOCBs were more affordable and less profitable for both cost and profit efficiency. Rupali bank was the most cost efficient while Sonali bank was the most profit efficient. IT Investment and IT personnel expenses were positively significant for cost efficiency. IT income, IT personnel, IT personnel expenses, ATM expenses, and Credit card expenses were negatively significant for profit efficiency. Conclusion: The further studies can combine DEA with machine learning algorithms to study the impact of IT on banks' performances. The results could aid government to remove the hindrance of progress in Bangladesh.

Purpose: This study is aimed to map the provinces in Indonesia based on the education and ICT indicators using several unsupervised learning algorithms. Research design, data, and methodology: The education and ICT indicators such as student-teacher ratio, illiteracy rate, net enrolment ratio, internet access, computer ownership, are used. Several approaches to get deeper understanding on provincial strength and weakness based on these indicators are implemented. The approaches are Ensemble K-Mean and Fuzzy C Means clustering. Results: There are at least three clusters observed in Indonesia the education quality, participation, facilities and ICT Access. Cluster with high education quality and ICT access are consist of DKI Jakarta, Yogyakarta, Riau Islands, East Kalimantan and Bali. These provinces show rapid economic growth. Meanwhile the other cluster consisting of six provinces (NTT, West Kalimantan, Central Sulawesi, West Sulawesi, North Maluku, and Papua) are the cluster with lower education quality and ICT development which impact their economic growth. Conclusions: The provinces in Indonesia are clustered into three group based on the education attainment and ICT indicators. Some provinces can directly implement e-learning; however, more provinces need to improve the education quality and facilities as well as the ICT infrastructure before implementing the e-learning.

Purpose: This study aims to determine the effect of economic agents, such as the amount of government expenditure on the environment, households, manufacturing industry, and shipping activities; on environmental degradation in Indonesia. Research design, data, and methodology: This study is conducted with 264 observations from panel data of 33 provinces during 2010-2017. Environmental degradation is measured by using the environmental quality index collected from Indonesian Ministry of Forestry and Indonesian Central Bureau of Statistics. Three testing models are used to test the panel data, namely Common Effect Model (CEM), Fixed Effect Model (FEM), and Random Effect Model (REM). Results: The research findings show that the amount of government expenditure on the environment, households, and shipping activities have a negative and significant effects on environmental degradation, while the number of manufacturing industry has positive and significant effect on environmental degradation. Unlike the previous studies, the result also shows that government expenditure on environmental has a positive and significant effect on environmental quality index. Conclusion: It can be concluded that even though Indonesian government spent a low budget on environment, their environmental regulation has succeeded both in reducing environmental degradation and increasing the environmental quality as indicated by Indonesian environmental quality index.

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to determine the effects of the Real Estate Transactions Tax (RETT) on the economic cycles of Saudi Arabia. A secondary purpose is to determine the effects of RETT on the construction and real estate sectors of Saudi Arabia. Research design, data and methodology: The data used is retrieved from the General Authority of Statistics, Saudi Central Bank and the World Bank Open Data. Econometric models of multiple linear regression with dummy variables have been conducted to achieve the objectives and to quantitatively verify the hypotheses. Results: With the VAT exemption in real estate transactions and its substitution with RETT, a positive effect on the economy and the real estate sector has been observed. However, this tax reform has not produced any significant effects in the construction sector. Conclusions: The main conclusion of the present research is that the real estate market has a major influence on economic cycles. After the tax reform, a reduction in the contribution of taxes on real estate transactions to GDP was detected. For the construction sector, after the tax reform, it is estimated that there will be an insignificant reduction in the contribution of the real estate price index, and of the taxes on real estate transactions, to GDP.