The rise of regional monetary arrangements poses a challenge for the International Monetary Fund (IMF)'s global surveillance efforts. This paper reviews how the IMF has responded to earlier regional initiatives, from the European Payments Union of the 1950s and the Gold Pool of the 1960s to the...

The paper reviews the experience of regional economic cooperation in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC). Conceived as a regional security alliance, the GCC has evolved to become a common market in the making. All six GCC countries participate in the common market project, and additional...

The Chiang Mai Initiative Multilateralisation (CMIM) and the ASEAN+3 Macroeconomic Research Office (AMRO), established in March 2010 and May 2011, respectively, have made substantial headway. But despite the rapid progress, a series of fundamental questions have been raised, particularly about...

The debt crisis in several member states of the euro area has raised doubts on the viability of European Economic and Monetary Union (EMU) and the future of the euro. While the launch of the euro in 1999 stirred a lot of interest in regional monetary integration and even monetary unification in...

The purpose of this paper is to reexamine the exchange rate policy of the Republic of Korea, and its role in promoting financial and monetary cooperation in East Asia in the wake of the 2008 global financial crisis. The Republic of Korea would not actively participate in any discussion of...

Latin American has the longest history of regional integration efforts in the developing world. This paper analyzes the experience of regional monetary cooperation in Latin America over the past three decades. This experience has been overall successful but also uneven, both in terms of country...

The paper reviews the experience of regional economic cooperation in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC). Conceived as a regional security alliance, the GCC has evolved to become a common market in the making. All six GCC countries participate in the common market project, and additional...

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...

The paper gives an assessment of the progress made in developing local debt markets in emerging Asia. Market development has been limited by hurdles confronting borrowers and lenders, current and potential liquidity providers, and insufficient support from government policies and regulations....

We calculate the return on the major Asian currency denominated long-term government bonds in terms of a basket of the People's Republic of China's (PRC) imports of goods and services, namely the real return on those assets from the PRC's perspective. In the sample period of January 2002 to...