The Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) presents strong potential to mold regional trade and investment patterns well into the future and to influence the direction of global economic cooperation at a challenging time. This paper evaluates the RCEP and estimates its potential...

The issue of decoupling is controversial. On the back of Asia's sustained high growth, the hypothesis that the region's business cycles would become increasingly independent of the global trend gained considerable attention. Asia was nonetheless hit hard by the global financial crisis and...

In this paper, we propose a panel approach in the construction of the Asia-Pacific Regional Cooperation and Integration Index (ARCII) to strengthen the index's ability to track the progress of economic integration in the region over time. Panel-based procedures are employed in imputing missing...

Asia's economic significance has risen substantially over the past several decades. Further economic development in ASEAN, with its massive population, requires very efficient utilization of resources and cross-border cooperation. While ASEAN has much to gain from economic cooperation and...

Although the global financial crisis of 2008 took root in the advanced countries, its shocks spread through the emerging economies, reflecting the increasingly interconnected global financial system. This paper develops an empirical methodology to test the contagion effect at the country level...

This paper investigates and tests the role of regional exposures in financial contagion from advanced to emerging market economies through the global banking network using data on cross-border bilateral bank claims and liability positions. We first examine whether an economy can become more...

International migration is an essential element of economic integration. Yet, the intraregional movement of people and labor in Asia and the Pacific has stagnated in recent years even as the flow of goods, services, and investment have steadily risen. This paper examines key factors driving the...