Except for the history of colonialism, the European Union (EU) and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) have similar roots and they share initial targets to foster economic growth and competitiveness. However, the EU and ASEAN have diverging economic integration paths. The ASEAN...

In the last decade, East Asia has engaged in constructing numerous mechanisms to enhance regional cooperation in the areas of trade and finance. However, the region's economic architecture exhibits certain idiosyncrasies such as an eclectic institutional structure and a limited level of...

Asia's economic significance has risen substantially over the past several decades. Further economic development in ASEAN, with its massive population, requires very efficient utilization of resources and cross-border cooperation. While ASEAN has much to gain from economic cooperation and...

Motivated by the proliferation of free trade agreements (FTAs) in Asia over the last decade, this paper studies the challenges faced by the Asian "noodle bowl" - overlapping, multiple trade rules, regulations, and standards in Asia - in the process of regional and global trade integration. The...

Galvanized by the devastation of the Second World War, European countries achieved a historically unprecedented and unparalleled level of regional economic integration in the postwar period. Intensive cooperation between the two biggest powers of continental Western Europe, France, and Germany,...