This paper explores the long-term challenges for trade and foreign direct investment (FDI) of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). The region has emerged as an important production base for multinational corporations by joining East Asia's supply chains. While proceeding to...

This paper shows that regional trade integration shifts the burden of the exchange rate adjustment towards the less integrated trading partners. Thus, they bear the cost of trade balance expansion, while competitive exchange rate moves vis-a-vis RTA trading partners result in no expansion or...

Covering major Asian economic blocs and dialogues, this study comprehensively reviews the true progress of "Asian" economic integration in comparison with the European Union (EU) and examines the factors contributing to the integration. The results show that comprehensive continent-wide economic...

Europe and Asia followed very different paths to economic integration after 1945. By 2000, an economic union with free movement of goods and factors of production and a common currency linked much of Europe. Meanwhile, effective economic integration agreements were absent from Asia, although...

Sweden became a member of the European Union (EU) in 1995. Since then, she has been integrated into the EU's internal market under the Single Market Programme (SMP). Before Sweden's accession to the EU, she was a member of the European Free Trade Association (EFTA) signed with the EU in 1972....

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...

Regional economic integration agreements are considered to be important policy mechanisms to address regional developmental asymmetries. The Asian reality is characterized by developmental asymmetries across countries on the one hand and a lack of comprehensive pan-Asian formal regional economic...

Regional economic integration is back in vogue following the "stumble" in the Doha Round in July 2008. Preferential trade agreements (PTAs) are driving this trend in Asia and the Pacific as well as in Central and South America, and the sheer volume of PTAs is striking. In the 1990s there were...

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...

The impact of globalization in terms of bilateral trade is a renowned theoretical underpinning in the literature. Nevertheless, testing a trade integration model of bilateral trade is not sufficiently well estimated with the Bayesian approach to provide pragmatic evidence of trade integration...