Over the past 2 decades, income inequality has moderated in three middle-income countries in Southeast Asia-the Philippines, Thailand, and Viet Nam-with multiple factors at play. In each country, wage, nonfarm business income, and overseas remittance concentrations declined as less well-off...

We estimate the People's Republic of China's (PRC's potential growth rate in 2012 at 8.7% and at 9.2% for the average of 2008-2012, about the same as the average actual growth rate for this period. This rate is the natural growth rate, that is, the rate consistent with a constant unemployment...

The central question addressed by this study is whether countries with above-average governance grew faster than countries with below-average governance. Using the World Bank's worldwide governance indicators to measure governance performance, it examines whether a country with governance...

This paper estimates fiscal multipliers using quarterly data for a panel of nine developing Asian economies, following a vector autoregression model specification, but using local projections to extract the impulse responses. We provide evidence that the 4-quarter and 8-quarter cumulative...

This paper looks at the recent trends of rising inequality in developing Asia, asks why inequality matters, examines the driving forces of rising inequality, and proposes policy options for tackling high and rising inequality. Technological change, globalization, and market-oriented reform have...

"Using an early warning system (EWS) model, this paper provides more empirical evidence on the causes of the 1997 Asian financial crisis, with a view to discriminating between the two hypotheses of "weak fundamentals" and "investors' panic." The results show that there are strong warning signals...

This paper attempts to construct leading indicator systems for the Malaysian and Philippine economies using publicly available economic and financial data, with a view to predicting turning points of growth cycles in the two countries. The results show that during the sample period of January...

The choice of an appropriate social discount rate for cost–benefit analysis of public projects has long been a contentious issue and subject to intense debate among economists. This debate has gained new impetus from the recent discussions on the economics of climate change. The purpose of...

Developing Asia is embracing inclusive growth as a key development goal in response to rising inequalities and increasing concern that these could undermine the very sustainability of Asia's growth. This paper argues that inclusive growth emphasizes creation of and equal access to opportunities;...

This paper reviews the theoretical and empirical literature on the role of financial sector development, with a view to deepening understanding of the rationale of development assistance to the financial sector of developing countries. The review leads to the following broad conclusions: (i)...