The paper argues that East Asian regionalism is fragile because (i) each nation's industrial competitiveness depends on the smooth functioning of "Factory Asia" - in particular for intraregional trade; (ii) the unilateral tariff-cutting that created Factory Asia is not subject to WTO discipline...

Bilateral and regional cooperation initiatives in Asia have been growing in importance over the last five years.These accords span the real and financial sectors; rather than following the more typical pattern of "trade first,money later", recent policy initiatives involve the simultaneous...

Expanding trade with East Asia’s "Big Three" economic giants - the People's Republic of China (PRC), Japan, and the Republic of Korea - offers a new potential source of growth for ASEAN in the post-global-crisis period. In fact, ASEAN has been actively pursuing trade liberalization with the...

As East Asia becomes increasingly integrated through market-driven trade and FDI activities, free trade agreements (FTAs) are proliferating. Consolidation of multiple and overlapping FTAs into a single East Asian FTA can help mitigate the harmful noodle bowl effects of different or competing...

Many economists tend to be skeptical of the merits of Free-Trade Areas (FTAs) due to their second-best nature, while others support them under certain conditions, particularly as they allow for a more comprehensive treatment of trade- and investment-related issues than is currently possible...

Regionalism and regional integration in East Asia has developed dynamically at various levels over the past two decades. In the world system, East Asia‘s degree of regional economic coherence is second only to the European Union‘s. In addition to deepening micro-level regionalisation, new...

This paper surveys recent literature on the design of international institutions and applies the insights from it to the prospects for regional economic cooperation in the Asia-Pacific. The political and economic heterogeneity of the region has served the process of regional economic...

When debating the pros and cons of economic regionalism, haven't we focused enough on trade in goods at the expense of services? This article argues that regionalism is certainly a building block, not a stumbling block to a multilateral trading system, using the services liberalization scheme of...

The 1997/98 Asian currency crisis has led a once high-flying East Asia to realize its vulnerability to external shocks. This realization has given strong impetus to greater economic integration among East Asian economies, with the ASEAN-Korea Free Trade Area (AKFTA) a case in point. This paper...