Vol. 8 No. 2 (2025)

Purpose: The study examines Nepal’s health insurance performance, focusing on enrollment, premium collection, and claims disbursement, identifying operational and policy barriers affecting sustainability and equity.Design/methodology/approach: A descriptive study analyzed secondary data (2015–2024) from Nepal’s Health Insurance Board, using percentage-based trend analysis of insured citizens, premium collected, claim paid, and premium-claim ratio under Universal Health Coverage (UHC).Findings: Nepal’s health cover has grown rapidly since F/Y 2015-16, enhancing universal health cover but at the cost of gender and marginal group equity gaps. COVID-19 caused claim spikes and financial instability, though premiums bounced back in F/Y 2023-24. Despite higher utilization, satisfaction remains moderate due to service gaps. Regional disparities in health security access are evident in Social Health Security Program (SHSP) enrollment trends. The Health Insurance Board needs an urgent reform in premium pricing to ensure longevity of the policy.Conclusion: Nepal’s insurance scheme faces systemic inefficiencies, with an unsustainable premium-claim ratio (331.3 percent in F/Y 2023-24) and irregular enrollments across provinces, undermining UHC. To improve retention and equity, streamlined processes, awareness campaigns, and policy reforms are urgently needed to ensure financial stability and equitable access.Implications: To attain fair UHC, Nepal must address regional disparities, maintain financial stability, and advance inclusive policies.Originality/Value: The study assesses Nepal’s health insurance system, revealing inequalities and financial instability, providing policy recommendations for gendersensitive reforms and crisis preparedness strategies.JEL Classification: I13, I18, H51

Purpose: This study examines the influence of behavioral biases (i.e., specifically, information framing and the disposition effect) on the decision-making behavior of individual investors in the Nepalese stock market. Additionally, the study investigates how years of investment experience moderate these relationships.Design/methodology/approach: A cross-sectional survey design was employed, collecting data from 261 investors actively trading in the secondary market through broker houses in the Kathmandu Valley. Data were gathered using a structured questionnaire and analyzed using SmartPLS 4.0 to causal relationship. Findings: This study demonstrates that the disposition effect significantly shapes investor decision-making, while framing biases show no such impact. Notably, investment experience moderates the disposition effect, amplifying its influence, but does not moderate framing biases, underscoring a nuanced behavioral pattern among investors.Conclusion: The study concludes that while experience helps investors overcome framing-induced irrationalities, the disposition effect remains a persistent bias shaping decision-making in Nepal’s emerging capital market.Implications: This research not only contributes to extending the applicability of behavioral finance theory to frontier markets but also provides essential evidence to inform more targeted investor education initiatives and regulatory policies.Originality/Value: This study adds value by filling an empirical gap through a novel framework that highlights how behavioral biases and investment experience jointly influence investor decision-making in emerging markets.JEL Classification: G11, G41, D81

Purpose: The study aims to investigate the existence of the short-term overreaction effect in the Nepalese stock market and to assess whether short-term contrarian strategies can generate abnormal profits for investors.Design/methodology/approach: Using monthly stock return data from NEPSE spanning July 2014 to July 2019, this study applies the cumulative average return method and three regression models across sixteen short-term buy and hold horizons to investigate both the existence of overreaction effects and the profitability of contrarian investment strategies.Findings: The empirical results indicate no significant evidence of short-term overreaction effects in the Nepalese stock market. Further, none of the short-term contrarian strategies yielded significant results to yield abnormal returns during the studied period.Conclusion: Findings indicate no evidence of short-term overreaction in NEPSE, suggesting relative market efficiency and the ineffectiveness of contrarian strategies for generating excess returns.Implications: These results emphasize that investors should be wary of contrarian strategies in Nepal’s market and that policymakers must strengthen settlement and liquidity frameworks to ensure any fleeting inefficiencies are neither masked nor unexploitable.Originality/value: This study contributes to the limited literature on overreaction under behavioural finance in emerging markets, particularly in the context of the underexplored Nepalese stock market.JEL Classification: G14, G41, G11, G15

Purpose: Based on the Service Performance (SERVPERF) model and expectancydisconfirmation theory, this study investigates how five education quality dimensions (i.e., physical facilities, curriculum design, teachers’ expertise, student support, and financial assistance) shape student satisfaction at Pokhara University.Design/methodology/approach: This study employed a cross-sectional design, surveying 400 undergraduate and postgraduate students proportionally sampled from four constituent colleges of Pokhara University using quota and convenience methods. Data were analyzed using SPSS and Structural Equation Modeling (SEM).Findings: The findings revealed that curriculum design and student support are the strongest predictors of student satisfaction, followed by financial assistance and teachers’ expertise, while physical facilities do not have a meaningful impact.Conclusion: This study advances the behavioral understanding of service quality in higher education by demonstrating that intangible dimensions significantly outweigh tangible ones in driving student satisfaction at the constituent colleges of Pokhara University.Implications: It extends established service quality frameworks into Nepal’s higher education context and delivers actionable insights for university administrators and policymakers.Originality/value: This study fills a critical gap by applying established service quality models to Nepal’s underexplored higher education context, blending the roles of tangible and intangible factors in shaping student satisfaction.JEL Classification: I21, I22, I23, R53

Purpose: This study investigates how dimensions of the physical environment (i.e., ambience, layout, and lighting) impact consumer satisfaction in fast-food restaurants, while also assessing the moderating effect of gender.Design/methodology/approach: A cross-sectional survey was conducted among 384 patrons of fast-food restaurants in Kathmandu, Nepal, selected through convenience sampling. Data were gathered using a structured questionnaire and analyzed with SPSSv26, employing descriptive statistics, correlation, and multiple regression to examine hypothesized relationships and moderation effects.Findings: Ambience, layout, and lighting each demonstrated a positive and significant influence on consumer satisfaction, with layout emerging as the most influential factor. Contrary to initial assumptions, gender did not significantly moderate these relationships, indicating similar perceptions across male and female consumers.Conclusion: The study emphasizes that thoughtfully designed physical environments are critical drivers of consumer satisfaction, offering strategic value for sustaining competitiveness in the fast-food industry.Implications: The results provide actionable guidance for fast-food managers aiming to enhance customer satisfaction and encourage repeat visits. Emphasizing strategic layout design, alongside appealing ambience and lighting, can serve as a competitive differentiator in the crowded fast-food sector.Originality/value: Anchored in the Stimulus-Organism-Response (SOR) framework, this study contributes fresh insights by contextualizing the impact of physical environments on consumer satisfaction within Nepal’s emerging fast-food industry. It also advances understanding by explicitly testing gender as a moderating factor in this relationship.JEL Classification: M31, L83, D12, J16

Purpose: This study investigates the operational efficiency of Nepalese non-life insurance companies and examines the key determinants of efficiency, including the impact of recent mergers.

Purpose: This study investigates how financial literacy (knowledge, skills, attitudes, and behavior) influences life insurance purchase intention in Nepal and examines the mediating role of insurance advisors among the policyholders in Nepal.

Purpose: This study aims to identify and analyze challenges of the adoption of paddy crop insurance in the terai regions, focusing on farmers' perceptions, institutional efficiency, and gaps in policy implementation.

Purpose: This research examines policyholders’ satisfaction in life insurance companies, focusing on the influence of customer-centric strategies, particularly agency role, service quality, and organizational trustworthiness.

Purpose: This study examines the extent of curricular decoupling of Risk Management, Social Security, and Insurance (RMSSI) in Nepal’s secondary school education (Grades 6–12), focusing on the alignment between constitutional and policy mandates and the formal written curriculum.