Economic theory suggests that sound and efficient financial systems - banks, equity markets, and bond markets - which channel capital to its most productive uses are beneficial for economic growth. Sound and efficient financial systems are especially important for sustaining growth in developing...

With a strong recovery from the global crisis, the Philippines' policy focus will shift again to a long-term development agenda. Despite favorable initial conditions, the Philippines' long-term growth performance has been disappointing. Over the decades, the economy has suffered from high...

We explore how demographic changes in the Asia and Pacific region are likely to influence economic growth and other features of the regional economy. While many low-income countries in the region will continue to experience a demographic dividend, over time population aging could drag on...

The environmental Kuznets curve (EKC) has been the dominant approach among economists to modeling aggregate pollution emissions and ambient pollution concentrations over the last quarter century. Despite this, the EKC was criticized almost from the start and decomposition approaches have been...

This paper surveys the empirical and theoretical link between education and growth in the growth process of Asian countries. Particular attention is paid to the link between education and productivity, and to models that characterize key features of growth processes of Asian countries. Empirical...

Rebalancing growth toward domestic demand has emerged as a key postcrisis challenge for sustaining developing Asia’s rapid growth in the medium and long term. The central objective of this paper is to explore the role of fiscal policy in the region’s rebalancing process. What matters most...