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...

Flood insurance is an insurance contract that covers losses to properties caused by flooding. Although floods affect Asia more than any other continent in the world, flood insurance is still at its nascent stage in the region. This paper explores the potentials and challenges of adapting flood...

The paper discusses key challenges faced throughout the Asia and the Pacific region as a number of its developing economies graduate from low-income status to middle-income status at the same time as the region remains home to the majority of the world's poor people and a number of fragile...

In the past 10 years, the service sector has been a significant contributor to overall economic growth in Bangladesh, Cambodia, Nepal, Papua New Guinea, Uzbekistan, and Viet Nam. Sector growth has been supported by strong industrial growth in some while in others the critical factors have been...

Developing Asian countries are strengthening their intellectual property rights (IPR) regime as they themselves become producers of intellectual property. At the same time, developing Asia has attracted large amounts of foreign direct investment (FDI) and this trend is expected to continue in...

In many countries, public agencies or private firms are gradually moving away from being exclusive providers of goods and services that traditionally were assigned to the state or markets, respectively. Instead, state agencies, both at the national and the local level, and private organizations,...

Asia’s burgeoning energy demand has stimulated interest in photovoltaics, wind power, and unconventional gas (shale gas, tight gas, coal-bed methane, and coal-mine methane). For each of these, the resource, current status, future prospects, environmental implications, investment and...

A potentially important side effect of quantitative easing(QE) by the United States (US) Federal Reserve System (the Fed) is the expansion of capital flows into developing countries. As a result, there is widespread concern that QE tapering may trigger financial instability in those countries....

We examine various macroeconomic impacts of improving energy efficiency in the People’s Republic of China, India, Indonesia, Japan, the Republic of Korea, Malaysia, and Thailand from 2010 to 2050. Energy efficiency policies would have a positive impact on private consumption, government...

In this paper we empirically explore the relationship between fiscal policy and economic growth in developing Asia. The region’s overall level of taxes and government spending are substantially lower than those prevailing in advanced economies. Nevertheless, there are conceptual grounds why...