Recent key challenges highlight the need to revisit Asia's financial development. These include the region's growth slowdown since the global crisis, compounded by a less benign external environment; internal structural challenges, such as population aging; and the maturing of much of the region...

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...

In recent years, inequality has risen in the region alongside rapid economic growth. The widening income gap strengthens the case for a government response, and fiscal policy is one of the most suitable policy instruments to promote a more equitable society that provides opportunities for all....

We examine the importance of total factor productivity (TFP) growth in middle-income countries based on cross-country panel data for the period 1975-2014. We find that TFP growth contributed significantly to a country’s upward transition from middle-income to high-income country group. The TFP...

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...

This contribution provides evidence for the hypothesis that trade increases growth through its curbing effect on capital taxes. The analysed trade-growth channel includes a negative impact of openness on corporate taxes and a negative effect of taxes on growth. The paper explores the two steps...

The paper first develops a theoretical model with different sectors, each providing a channel for an impact of energy prices on growth. In the short run, growth is hampered by increasing energy prices. In the long run, however, capital accumulation may be crowded out by energy use. This happens...

The paper develops a model with non-exponential population growth, nonrenewable natural resources, and endogenous knowledge creation to analyse substitution between primary inputs and an essential use of resources in the innovation sectors, which is generally considered as most unfavourable for...