This paper examines the developments of cross-border portfolio assets and liabilities in the Asia and Pacific region over the periods of 2001-2017. Rapid increases in both portfolio foreign assets and liabilities have taken place particularly after the 2008-2009 global financial crisis. These...

Digital trade facilitation refers to the application of modern information and communication technologies (ICTs) to simplify and automate international trade procedures. It is rapidly becoming essential to maintaining trade competitiveness and enabling effective participation in cross-border...

Digital trade is upending the way consumers and companies do business. Digital trade and e-commerce have become major drivers of economic development by enhancing productivity and lowering costs of trade in goods. But government policies have been slow to catch up with the increasing importance...

The Asia and Pacific region and Latin American and Caribbean region are two regions divided not only by vast geographic distance, but also by disparities in economics, politics, culture, and history. Most recently, a number of forums explored the possibility of closing such gaps and linking the...

Pacific economies are confronted with several structural constraints that limit their economic growth, most importantly their small size and remoteness from major world markets. In this paper we study the importance of transport connectivity for Pacific economies when participating in the world...

Fuel subsidies are widespread and debated extensively. The issues with these subsidies are fully acknowledged by many energy economists; however, the total subsidy level remains high. This is because energy subsidies are often closely related to the political economy viewpoint. Moreover, the...

The high hopes that the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) would open up trade across the Pacific were dashed by the decision of the new US Government under President Trump to withdraw from the agreement in January 2017. Despite being controversial, the TPP had been recognized as an agreement that...

This paper proposes a new method to predict the impact of preferential trade agreements (PTAs) on trade and welfare taking the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) agreement as a case study. Relying on a novel dataset of treaty texts covering all trade agreements notified to the WTO, we first...

This paper examines the countercyclicality of remittance inflows to the countries in Asia and the Pacific. It also aims to identify major determinants of remittances using gravity models of bilateral remittances. We find that bilateral remittance inflows are countercyclical against the business...

The COVID-19 pandemic is imposing economic and broader development challenges as never before. Policy lessons from Asia and the Pacific's past experience in dealing with shocks show that focusing on economic growth alone is not enough. Rising inequality and environmental challenges increased the...