Efficiency and equity are cornerstone concepts in rational service delivery in the public sector. This paper benchmarks efficiency and equity in public spending on health, education and social protection in a broad group of Asian Development Bank (ADB) member economies with varying levels of...

The transition in the People's Republic of China from a centrally planned economy to a market-based economy is widely acclaimed for leading to unprecedented economic growth, but there is a growing awareness of the social strains accompanying that growth such as the lagging development of the...

The collapse of trade during the great recession of 2008–2009 has raised the question of whether the rise of global value chains (GVCs) has increased or accelerated the international transmission of business cycle shocks. In this paper, we empirically investigate two channels through which a...

The gains of a country from participating in global value chains (GVCs) will depend on the productive activities taking place in its jurisdiction and their linkages to the domestic economy. Lead firms' decision on where to locate and how to coordinate production activities is influenced, among...

The world's trade landscape is being shaped by global value chains, which present new opportunities as well as challenges to developing countries. While large developing countries are leveraging the benefits of global value chains, smaller economies have been less successful. In this paper we...

In a highly integrated global economy, linkages of domestic sectors to global trade measure an economy's ability to gain from participating in global value chains. On the other hand, the strength of domestic linkages can provide insights on an economy's cross-industry trade and extent of the...

Export diversification, or the breadth of exports of an economy, is increasingly seen as a means of accelerating economic growth, mitigating instability due to price, demand, and exchange rate fluctuations, and stabilizing earnings from exports in the long run. As economies integrate into global...

In the globalization era, many products in the tourism industry are imported from other economies; whereas other products may be exported as intermediates to other economies. Researchers have assessed the economic impact of tourism for more than 40 years, but have shed little light on the...

Existing literature on economic growth and structural change relies on trade data to make pronouncements about a country's competitiveness and long-term growth prospects through the acquisition of capabilities. However, insufficient data give us a limited view of what is happening within the...

This paper argues that the single most important factor that explains East Asia's development success was its fast structural transformation toward industrialization, manufacturing in particular. Workers moved out of agriculture into manufacturing, and the sector diversified and upgraded its...