In this research project, we attempt to examine the behavior of business cycles in Asia in order to deepen our understanding of and expand research on this topic. Given the importance of the People’s Republic of China, Japan, and the United States in the region economy, we use these three...

In this paper, we investigate the degree of real economic interdependence between emerging Asia and major industrial countries to shed light on the heated debate over the “decoupling” of emerging Asia. We first document the evolution of macroeconomic interdependence for emerging Asian...

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...

Developing Asia remains at the core of global payment imbalances. While the geographical concentration of current account imbalances is rather significant, with the People’s Republic of China accounting for the lion’s share of the region’s current account surplus, how Asia contributes to...

The central objective of this paper is to empirically assess how global imbalances have evolved since the global financial crisis of 2008/09. More specifically, we examine how the security investment positions of major East Asian economies in United States (US) financial markets—equities,...

The recent global crisis has reminded everyone of the importance of reforming the international monetary and financial system. The current system is no longer adequate to meet the needs of a complex, integrated world economy. Various proposals, both on the demand and supply sides, have been put...

Are trade facilitation measures under free trade agreements (FTAs) discriminatory? This important question has yet to be sufficiently explored by the existing literature on trade facilitation. Despite the multilateral scope and non-discriminatory objectives of trade facilitation measures, some...

Rising economic integration in Asia and periodic volatility in global and national financial markets raise the issue of the optimal degree and form of monetary cooperation among Asian economies. There is a large literature on the benefits and costs of monetary cooperation, however, less can be...

In November 2002, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) committed itself to the creation of an ASEAN Economic Community (AEC), in which goods, services, capital, and skilled labor would flow freely by the year 2020, or possibly even 2015. Hence, the AEC will guide the ASEAN...

This paper asks how Asia should prepare for the disorderly correction of global imbalances. It recommends tightening monetary policy and allowing Asian currencies to appreciate as a way of achieving a better balance between internal and external demand. Leaving the overall level of demand...