This policy paper explores the judiciary's pivotal role in development, covering property rights, government accountability, and contract enforcement. It underscores the importance of impartial judicial institutions, focusing on independence, accountability, and their role in stabilizing global...

This paper looks at the development and transformation of the People's Republic of China (PRC)'s financial system since the start of economic and financial reforms in 1978. It describes how despite the rapid development of capital markets since the 1990s, the PRC's financial system continues to...

This paper presents the findings of a survey among 18 central banks from Asia and the Pacific regarding their views on and policies regarding sustainable finance. It also reviews recent developments in selected Asia and Pacific countries concerning sustainable finance to illustrate the actions...

Placing the Asian economies onto a sustainable development pathway requires an unprecedented shift in investment away from greenhouse gas, fossil fuel and natural resource intensive industries towards more resource efficient technologies and business models. The financial sector will have to...

The vital factors which can facilitate the development of startups and SMEs in markets are appropriate regulatory and policy frameworks. However, there are differences in the frameworks that may contribute to different levels of development in startups and SMEs in Japan, the Republic of Korea,...

In January 2016, the Government of India launched the Startup India initiative, which has transformed the way in which the markets, potential entrepreneurs, and investors view startups. This transformation included a slew of policy measures intended to promote a startup culture and allow younger...

The first green bond was issued in the People's Republic of China (PRC) in 2015 and since then the PRC has become a significant player in the world's green bond market. In just three years, green bond issuance in the PRC has skyrocketed from almost none to the country becoming one of the largest...

This paper discusses how financial crises in emerging Asia and Japan worked as catalysts for legal reforms. The responses of six Asian countries with different legal histories to financial crises that posed similar challenges are of both legal and economic interest. We first provide a...

This paper is a qualitative case study of two land acquisition cases highlighting the empirical effect of legal reforms on land use policy over time in Indonesia. Under the Suharto regime, land acquisition in the public interest was often coercive, with the government determining one-sided...

There was an expectation that the independent regulatory institutions that India created for its electricity sector would drive the sector along a sustainable trajectory. However, there has been a dearth of empirical studies analyzing the effect of electricity sector regulation on sustainable...