Developing Asia has undergone a dramatic shift over the past 5 decades from a region of mainly lowincome economies toward one that is largely middle income. Compared with world aggregate data, developing Asia now has a much greater proportion of middle-income economies. The region faces the...

We present three conditions for a demography-driven middle-income trap and show that many economies in East, South, and Southeast Asia satisfy all of them. The conditions are (1) support ratio - the ratio of workers to consumers - matters for economic growth, (2) economic development accompanies...

This paper introduces a new index of financial inclusion for 151 economies using principal component analysis to compute weights for aggregating nine indicators of access, availability, and usage. It then assesses the impact of financial inclusion on poverty and income inequality. The results...

The provision of infrastructure and related services in developing Asia via publi-private partnership (PPP) increased rapidly during the late 1990s. Theoretical arguments support the potential economic benefits of PPPs, but empirical evidence is thin. This paper develops a framework identifying...

Technological progress may be less beneficial for older workers than younger workers. In this paper, we empirically examine the impact of technological change on the wage share of older workers. More specifically, we look at five different types of technological advancement using data from 30...

The relationship between governance and economic development is one of the most important areas of research in international development. Much of the previous literature has focused on whether better governance leads to higher levels of income. In this paper, we examine the relationship between...

The central question addressed by this study is whether countries with above-average governance grew faster than countries with below-average governance. Using the World Bank's worldwide governance indicators to measure governance performance, it examines whether a country with governance...

Why do some economies grow faster than others? Do economies in the middle-income range face especially difficult challenges producing consistent growth? Using a transition matrix analysis on decade-level growth rates, we find that the data clearly reject the idea that middle-income economies...

We use a dynamic forecasting model to evaluate a wide array of opportunities for sustained economic growth in Myanmar. Our simulation results suggest that the government of Myanmar can advance potential growth drivers, by maintaining a stable macroeconomic environment that is conducive to...

The central objective of our paper is to empirically examine the relationship between financial development and income inequality. Theoretically, there are grounds for both a positive and negative relationship between the two variables. Our main finding is that financial development contributes...