While the impact of globalization on income inequality has received a lot of attention, little is known about its effect on the gender wage gap (GWG). This study argues that there is a systematic differece in GWG between exporting firms and non-exporters. By the virtue of being exposed to higher...

ASEAN has established mutual recognition arrangements (MRAs) on eight professional services. This paper assesses the progress of these arrangements’ paying special attention to the (i) regional and national implementation, (ii) national regulatory changes, and (iii) utilization of these...

ASEAN Economic Ministers signed the Agreement on the Movement of Natural Persons (MNP) in 2012. This is a new instrument potentially facilitating the free flow of goods, services, investment, and skilled labour, thus contributing to the establishment of an ASEAN single market and production...

The Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) is a new regional integration initiative intended to achieve a modern, comprehensive, high-quality, and mutually beneficial economic partnership agreement among the ASEAN Member States (AMSs) and ASEAN’s FTA Partners. The RCEP initiative...

In this paper, we investigate the dynamic nature of trading using Japanese firm-level data. Specifically, we examine state dependence and cross effects in exporting and importing. Our findings are as follows. First, we found significant state dependence and cross effects in exporting and...

ASEAN countries have liberalized intra-ASEAN trade over the last 20 years by establishing the ASEAN Free Trade Area (AFTA). This paper aims to examine the impact of trade liberalization under AFTA on intra-ASEAN trade. By applying a gravity model, we find positive and significant trade creation...

Addressing technical barriers to trade is a key priority of ASEAN as part of trade facilitation in achieving the Single Market and Production Base under the ASEAN Economic Community in 2015 and building an effective and competitive Economic Community beyond 2015. Standards and conformance...

The current status of trade facilitation measures including the ASEAN Single Window initiative is reviewed and assessed. Similar initiatives for trade facilitation in other parts of the world are also appraised, and recommendations for further enhancements for ASEAN trade facilitation are proposed.

The number of bilateral and plurilateral free trade agreements (FTAs) in East Asia has increased rapidly after the 2000s behind the world trend of RTAs. Many studies tackled the challenge of figuring out the impact of FTAs in this region by applying various methodologies. The first half of this...

This paper uses a disaggregated (product-level) gravity approach to estimate the effect of ASEAN’s product-specific rules of origin (RoO) on regional trade, using original data on rules applicable at the six-digit level of the harmonized system. Overall, we find that the average ad-valorem...