This paper documents and analyzes the rise of emerging East Asian economies as major international investors. Foreign direct investment (FDI) from these economies is rising faster than their economic growth, trade, and inward FDI, and the region is by far the most important investor from the...

This paper examines the impact of the global financial crisis on Cambodia, and the lessons learned. Cambodia is an interesting case study: after extremely rapid economic growth 2000-07, it experienced a sharp growth collapse in 2008-09. This highlighted a number of its peculiar vulnerabilities,...

Financial safety nets in Asia have come a long way since the Asian Financial Crisis (AFC) of 1997/98. Not wanting to rely solely on the International Monetary Fund (IMF) again, the Chiang Mai Initiative (CMI) was created in 2000. When the CMI also proved inadequate following the Global Financial...

This paper examines the experience of Indonesia during two major crisis episodes, the 1997-98 Asian financial crisis and the 2008-09 global economic recession. In the first episode, Indonesia experienced a deep economic and political crisis, while in the second the impacts were very mild. The...

There are few countries where ‘initial conditions’ are as unfavourable as those of Laos. It is a very poor, least developed country. It is landlocked, sharing its international borders with five neighbours. It has the world’s highest per capita stock of unexploded ordinance, a legacy of...

This paper examines the recent political economy of trade policy in Indonesia against the backdrop of two key events: the deep economic crisis of 1997-98, and the transition from three decades of rapid growth under an authoritarian regime to a weaker but democratic state. We investigate both...

(This is a revised version of a paper prepared for the World Bank project on East Asia's Future Economy, coordinated by Shahid Yusuf, and first presented at a conference at Harvard University, October 1-2.)

Indonesia is the world's largest archipelagic state, and one of the most spatially diverse nations on earth in its resource endowments, population settlements, location of economic activity, ecology and ethnicity. The regional socio-economic data base now extends over 30 years, and so it is...