Out-of-pocket (OOP) payments are the principal means of financing health care throughout much of Asia. The paper describe the magnitude and distribution of OOP payments for health care in 14 countries and territories accounting for 81% of the Asian population. The focus is on expenditures that...

The budget 2006-07 proposals in health care fell well short of India’s march towards achieving Millennium Development Goals(MDGs), the National Health Policy (NHP) goals and fully operationalising the National Rural Health Mission. Two questions still remain: (a) when will the urban bias...

This paper describes the structure and the distribution of health care financing in 13 territories that account for 55% of the Asian population. Survey data on household payments are combined with Health Accounts data on aggregate expenditures by source to estimate distributions of total health...

The objective of this paper is to identify climate change related threats and vulnerabilities associated with agriculture as a sector and agriculture as people’s livelihoods (exposure, sensitivity, adaptive capacity). The paper analyses the connections between the nature of human action...

Pension assets have seen rapid growth world-wide over the past decades, although they suffered large losses during the global financial crisis of 2007–2008. Such growth is notably due to both structural and parametric pension reforms since the 1980s. In the Asian region too, the pension...

This issue of Global Employment Trends for Youth provides an update on youth labour markets around the world, focusing both on the continuing labour market crisis and on structural issues in youth labour markets. The report provides an overview of youth labour markets at the global and regional...

Much more than comparative advantage and free markets have been at play in shaping China's export success. Government policies have helped nurture domestic capabilities in consumer electronics and other advanced areas that would most likely not have developed in their absence. As a result, China...

The most critical factor for maintaining regional stability in East Asia over the next few decades is the relations between the three great powers in the region: China, Japan and the United States. This paper discusses relations between China, Japan and the United States since World War II. It...

EU's response to the East Asian community has to take account of several dimensions including Issues and dynamics of East Asian regional cooperation and integration; Scenarios of regional Community-building across East Asia. among the shaping factors are the rise of China and its relations with...

Relative to developed countries, there are far fewer women than men in India. Estimates suggest that more than 25 million women are "missing". Sex selection at birth and the mistreatment of young girls are widely regarded as key explanations. A decomposition of missing women by age across the...