Recognizing the need to formulate policy strategies for the changes it faces, Myanmar started a multifaceted reform process in 2011. But speeding up development requires a multipronged but more coherent strategy targeted at strong and resilient growth, employment generation and, ultimately,...

This paper analyzes the role of complexity in production on the level of output and on its rate of growth. We develop an endogenous growth model with human capital accumulation, where increased complexity could exert either a positive or a negative effect on the level of output but always a...

The underdeveloped service sector in Asia has the potential to become a new engine of economic growth for developing Asia, which has traditionally relied on export-oriented manufacturing to power its growth. The central objective of this paper is to empirically analyze the prospects for the...

This paper presents new micro-level data consisting of individual greenfield investment projects and mergers and acquisitions as a source for detailed analysis of service sector cross-border investment flows among the Asian Development Bank (ADB) regional members. The new transactional foreign...

We study changes in 130 countries' indices of revealed comparative advantage for 1,240 products between 1995 and 2010, to answer: (i) whether export diversification is path-dependent, and whether it is more difficult to diversify into more sophisticated products; and (ii) whether education helps...

This paper asks, first, whether today's developing economies can achieve high-income status without first building large manufacturing sectors. We find that practically every economy that enjoys a high income today experienced a manufacturing employment share in excess of 18%-20% sometime since...

We estimate the People's Republic of China's (PRC's potential growth rate in 2012 at 8.7% and at 9.2% for the average of 2008–2012, about the same as the average actual growth rate for this period. This rate is the natural growth rate, that is, the rate consistent with a constant unemployment...

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...

Some countries and regions have been more successful than others in developing information technology-business process outsourcing (IT-BPO) services industries. India and the Philippines in particular have offered educated human resources at low cost, attractive fiscal incentives, and industrial...

The Philippines is often referred to as a country from which export of services rather than manufactured goods is the principal engine for economic growth, as the share of the service sector in gross domestic product has exceeded that of the industry sector since the mid-1980s. Three major...