This paper investigates sources and determinants of foreign direct investment (FDI) flows to developing Asia using bilateral FDI flows for the period 1990-2005. The Triad (composed of Japan, EU, and the US) has accounted for about 35-40% of FDI inflows to developing Asia in recent years, with...

This paper focuses on the relevance to emerging economies of three major financial reforms following the global financial crisis of 2007 - 2009: (1) the improved capital requirements intended to reduce the risk of bank failure ("Basel III"), (2) the improved recovery and resolution regimes for...

This paper discusses how financial crises in emerging Asia and Japan worked as catalysts for legal reforms. The responses of six Asian countries with different legal histories to financial crises that posed similar challenges are of both legal and economic interest. We first provide a...

Rapid population ageing and economic transformation in Asia raise the policy challenge of ensuring income security in old age. There is growing interest among policymakers in the potential role of noncontributory transfers as an instrument to address a variety of policy challenges, including old...

Driven by waves of foreign capital inflows and outflows, Indonesia, the Republic of Korea, and Thailand - among several other emerging markets - have resorted to capital control policy since 2006. Are capital controls effective? Controls on capital inflows have been experiencing a renaissance...

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 market...

The formation of regional production networks in East Asia has occurred mainly through market forces, without much help from regional institutions in promoting the creation of a single Asian market. While this approach has served the region well in the past, the drastic changes experienced since...

The aftermath of the global financial crisis of 2007-08 underlined the importance of maintaining fiscal space and fiscal sustainability. Even though many Asian economies implemented fiscal stimulus policies during the crisis period, their fiscal conditions generally improved rapidly thereafter,...

This paper reviews selected initiatives taken by Asian countries to comply with emerging global sustainability standards, reporting, and management systems, and tracks the response of Asian businesses to global environmental concerns, examines market based innovations including new regulations...

Structural change has a far-reaching impact on inequality. It exposes the population to challenges and opportunities. Foreign trade and technological progress have been widely put forth as a structural driver of inequality. Broader structural change, such as demographic transition, can also...