Sharp increase in house prices combined with the extraordinary lending growth in Mainland China during 2009 has led to concerns of an emerging real estate bubble. We find that, for China as a whole, the current levels of house prices do not seem significantly higher than would be justified by...

This collection of 19 new essays written by civil society activists, trade unionists and other water practitioners, presents examples of ongoing struggles against water privatization and commercialization as well as inspiring examples of people-centered public water management from across Asia....

The principal constraint to raising living standards in this century will come neither from scarce resources nor limited technologies. Rather it will come from our limited capacity to discover and implement new rules—new ideas about how to structure interactions among people, such as land...

Social movements in Hong Kong have begun to challenge the law and the judicial system for the purpose of challenging government policies or at least making their claims highly visible before the public in Hong Kong. the legal boundary of the free space for social movements has been contested in...

This paper considers the choices facing the Asian tiger economies regarding growth strategies that foster trans-Pacific rebalancing. A review of historical data spanning 2000 to 2008 reveals only a slight widening of the overall current account surplus but that there is considerable variation...

This paper investigates the prevailing financial regulatory structures and impact of the current financial turmoil on banking performance in four Asian economies: the People's Republic of China (PRC); Hong Kong, China; Singapore; and Taipei,China. Both the PRC and Hong Kong, China operate under a...

Spot fire disputes have sparked across Asia, with the winds of nationalism spurring them on. If one flares up it could ignite a region. Escalating tensions should have mediators vigilant and with pails of water at the ready. With tensions escalating rapidly in Asia’s territorial disputes,...

Two features of East Asia’s recovery from the financial turmoil of 1997- 98 appear to be rather paradoxical. First, the regional economies (except Hong Kong, China and Malaysia) have allowed a relatively greater albeit modest degree of variability of their currencies according to market...

When analyzing the appropriate response for monetary policy during a currency crisis it is important to keep in mind two distinct channels: (a) the impact of raising interest rates on exchange rates; and (b) the direct impact of exchange rate changes on output. The first pertains to the monetary...

The sovereign debt problems in the peripheral economies of the euro zone has started to pose a serious threat to the main economies of the Europe and perhaps to the future of the 'euro‘ itself. Such a situation is a far cry from the optimism and grand vision that marked its launch. This...