How can international financial centres like Hong Kong increase assets under management – and thus their size and ranking? Most policymakers and their advisors wrongly answer this question by focusing on financial institutions, and the law that governs them. Instead, policymakers need to start...

Hong Kong contributes to poor corporate governance on the Mainland. Could regulatory reform in Hong Kong help improve corporate governance standards/practices (and thus firm value) on the Mainland? In this paper, we discuss ways to incentivize Mainland firms to improve their corporate governance...

A multilateral development finance institution for the Inter-Governmental Authority on Development (IGAD) region represents the chance to create a strong pro-developmental actor – and energize the IGAD itself. Yet, the IGAD senior officials will need to look beyond the traditional development...

Qianhai – an innovation park in Shenzhen – has the possibility of boosting innovation in Hong Kong, Shenzhen and in the wider region. This paper analyses the costs and benefits of existing plans for Qianhai and discusses the profit-maximising design of the Qianhai. We review existing...

What role does polyarchy (and thus increased democracy) play in aiding the development of an international financial centre? We find support for decades of theorising that some jurisdictions use autocracy (less polyarchy) to help grow out their financial centres. We look at the growth of these...

What role could unconventional monetary policy - and particularly unconventional policies like private asset purchases under a quantitative easing or lender of last resort scheme - play in influencing economic growth directly? A wide literature in economics explores the pros and cons of using...

How far do China’s property prices need to drop in order to send the country into a recession? What does this question tell us about the way Bubble Economies work? In this paper, we develop a theory of Bubble Economics – non-linear and often “systemic” (in the mathematical sense of the...

FinTech offers a new way to mobilize resources for all kinds of uses – including for funding sustainable development. Roughly 3%-13% of funding required for the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)– or around $50 billion to $125 billion -- could come from a ‘FinTech Dividend.’...

Qianhai-an innovation park in Shenzhen-has the possibility of boosting innovation in Hong Kong, Shenzhen and in the wider region. This paper reviews the existing evidence about which policies have promoted profitable innovation in the Qianhai region (Hong Kong and Shenzhen) in the past. We also...

The Bruneian Government has set an ambitious target to achieve a top 10 ranking on the UNDP’s Human Development Index (HDI) by 2035. To achieve its objective (described in a national strategy document called the Wawasan 2035), Brunei’s economy needs to grow by 6%-7%. Is setting an HDI target...