South and Southeast Asian economic integration via increased trade flows has been increasing significantly over the past 2 decades, but the level of trade continues to be relatively low. This underperformance has been due to both policy-related variables—relatively high tariff and...

Japan’s “two lost decades†perhaps represent an extreme example of a weak recovery from a financial crisis, and are now referred to as “Japanization.†More recently, widespread stagnation in advanced economies in the wake of the global financial crisis led to fears...

The aftermath of the global financial crisis of 2007–2009 has called the export-led growth model of Asian economies into question. This paper describes the contribution that macroeconomic policy can make to promote a rebalancing of growth away from dependence on exports to...

A key lesson of the 2007–2009 global financial crisis (GFC) was the importance of containing systemic financial risk and the need for a “macroprudential†approach to surveillance and regulation that can identify system-wide risks and take appropriate actions to maintain...

The Great East Japan Earthquake on 11 March 2011 was the biggest earthquake recorded in Japanese seismic history, and the fourth largest recorded in the world. The scope of the disaster far exceeded that of the Hanshin Earthquake of 1995. The repercussions of this disaster spread far...

The adoption of quantitative easing (QE) policy by the United States (US) Federal Reserve Bank since early 2009 has aroused widespread concerns in Asia and elsewhere regarding its possible impact in terms of the weakening of the US dollar and stimulating capital outflows to emerging...

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...

The Asian financial crisis (1997–1998) and the global financial crisis (2007–2009) highlighted the potential value of financial regionalism, i.e., regional-level cooperation in financial policy. This paper argues that there is a mediating role for regional-level institutions of...

This paper analyzes the evolution of East Asian monetary policy frameworks over the past two decades, chiefly in response to shocks from the Asian financial crisis of 1997–1998 and the global financial crisis (GFC) of 2007–2009. The Asian financial crisis showed the importance of...