The evidence for a productivity-based explanation for real exchange rate behavior of East Asian currencies is examined. Using sectoral output and employment data, relative prices and relative productivities are calculated for China, Indonesia, Japan, Korea, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore,...

This paper reaches seven conclusions regarding the Yen Bloc that Japan is reputed to be forming in Pacific Asia. (1) Gravity-model estimates of bilateral trade show that the level of trade in East Asia is biased intra-regionally, as it is within the European Community and within the Western...

The paper introduces a framework for studying the hierarchy of growth factors, from deep to more immediate. The specific setting we examine is 18th and 19th century Germany, when institutional changes introduced by reforms and transportation improvements converged to create city growth. We...

This paper is the first chapter in the Oxford Companion to the Economics of China (Oxford University Press, forthcoming). Rather than trying to summarize other contributors' views, we provide our own perspectives on the Economics of China--the past experience and the future prospects. Our...

We show that much of Africa's recent growth and poverty reduction can be traced to a substantive decline in the share of the labor force engaged in agriculture. This decline has been accompanied by a systematic increase in the productivity of the labor force, as it has moved from low...

We estimate the respective contributions of institutions, geography, and trade in determining income levels around the world, using recently developed instruments for institutions and trade. Our results indicate that the quality of institutions trumps' everything else. Once institutions are...

The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) is a new negotiation on cross border liberalization of goods and service flows going beyond WTO disciplines and focused on issues such as regulation and border controls. Though the US, Australia and other pacific countries are included, China is notable for...

This is the first of a sequence of papers on international flows of merchandise trade among fifteen Pacific Basin countries and between them and eleven regions in the Rest of the World. The basic purpose of this report is to present and document annual data on bilateral flows of exports in...

This paper analyses policy interdependence under flexible exchange rates and its implications for middle-income countries in the Pacific area. In the first part of the paper, the consequences of strategic behavior among industrial countries are illustrated by means of a simple diagram. It is...

This is the second of a sequence of papers on international flows of merchandise trade among fifteen Pacific Basin countries and between them and eleven regions in the Rest of the World. In the first paper in this sequence (Hickman, Kuroda and Lau (1977)) we presented annual data on bilateral...