Regional economic integration is back in vogue following the "stumble" in the Doha Round in July 2008. Preferential trade agreements (PTAs) are driving this trend in Asia and the Pacific as well as in Central and South America, and the sheer volume of PTAs is striking. In the 1990s there were...

Why is Asia lagging behind other regions in creating regional judicial institutions? What lessons from the operation of such institutions elsewhere could be valuable to Asian regional economic integration? I show that Asian states are not unusually averse to refer inter-state disputes over...

Trade policy in Asia has switched from non-discriminatory unilateral liberalisation, reinforced by GATT/ WTO commitments, to discriminatory FTAs. The paper surveys the FTA activity of the major regional players: China, India, the ASEAN countries, Japan and South Korea. It concludes that emerging...

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...

Economic corridors connect economic agents along a defined geography. They provide important connections between economic nodes or hubs that are usually centered in urban landscapes. They do not stand alone, as their role in regional economic development can be comprehended only in terms of the...

Regional economic integration through logistics, information network and connectivity improvement can increase the 'virtual size' of an economy as trade with neighboring countries increases. This leads to substantial benefits from scale, network, coordination and agglomeration economies. As is...