Using IMF's World Economic Outlook (WEO) data for the macroeconomic variables, this study comparatively examines the sovereign debt crises in Sri Lanka and Bangladesh. It identifies different macroeconomic factors related to the sovereign debt crisis, investigates their interrelations, and explores if their debt crises are similar. It shows that the general revenue to Gross Domestic Product (GDP) ratios of Sri Lanka degraded to converge with the upgrading status of Bangladesh during the Covid-19 period. Since 2010, Sri Lanka has maintained a well-off economic status with per capita GDP, while Bangladesh has a long way to go yet. The general expenses to GDP ratio of Sri Lanka shows stresses on its GDP, while that of Bangladesh is more relaxed. Sri Lanka has overstressed debt to GDP ratio along with Balance of Payments (BOP) deficits, while Bangladesh has continued traces of managed debt to GDP ratio along with BOP surpluses. Bangladesh has taken enough precautions in their sovereign debt management, compared to Sri Lanka. Even in 2020, Bangladesh maintained progressive investment track over the threshold limit of 30%, while Sri Lanka fell into a debt trap. Following the pandemic, Bangladesh has enjoyed a gross national savings to GDP ratio of above the threshold of 25%, while Sri Lanka is going through a critical phase. It shows governance myopia of Bangladesh regarding its imbalanced current account positions, while governance myopia of Sri Lanka exists with reference to its imbalanced current account positions, adverse gross debts, and government borrowing as well.

Initial Public Offering (IPO) is a fund-raising tool through which a company gets listed for the first time under SEBI regulation and issues IPOs to raise funds from the public. The shift from a privately-owned to a publicly-owned firm via an IPO is the most significant event in a company's life (Pagano et al., 1998). In an IPO investment, there is limited historical data to analyze and predict the future performance of the company; hence it becomes a risky investment for the investors as they cannot predict how the shares will perform in the future. Most companies that go for an IPO are in the growth or expansion phase so it becomes more difficult to predict their market position and performance in the future, which leads to uncertainty in deriving their future value. Also, most IPOs are of companies going through a transitory growth period, and are therefore subject to additional uncertainty regarding their future value. This study analyzes the performance of the IPOs issued during the Covid-19 pandemic, when the markets across the world faced massive disruptions. The IPOs from various sectors like finance, technology, service, infrastructure, food, pharmaceutical and information technology were considered for the study. The study also analyzes the factors affecting investor perception towards investment in an IPO. The study considered the IPOs issued during the pandemic, and their performance on the listing day was measured by considering issue price, listing price and closing price. It was observed that 90% of the IPOs selected performed well during the listing day and 10% underperformed. It was also found that factors like company brand, company sector, fundamental analysis, company ratings, expert opinion and stock market conditions had a positive impact on the investors' decision to invest in an IPO. The study also revealed that factors like risk factor in primary market, returns on IPO on the listing day and Gray Market Premium have no significant impact on the investors' perception.