Introduction -- Opening of the Vietnamese economy: Achievements and challenges -- Public administration reform: Efforts and reality -- From state to market: Evolving ownership and corporate governance in Vietnam -- Labour and special economic zones -- Vietnamese political economy in an East...

Over the past decade, globalisation has been a pervasive trend in almost all economies. The world economy is becoming increasingly interdependent, deepening and intensifying international linkages, most notably in trade. As trade expands among nations throughout the world, integration of the...

At the 1994 APEC summit in Bogor, Indonesia, it was recommended that trade and investment barriers among the member countries be removed by 2020. Despite general consensus that trade liberalization would accelerate development in this most dynamic trading area, there is very little empirical...

Widening imbalances in current account positions across some of the major OECD economic areas have raised concerns about related increases in protectionist sentiments. This paper reviews recent trends in market openness indicators and assesses whether barriers to international trade and...

The trade liberalisation agreements signed between the European Union and the southern Mediterranean countries carry risks as well as benefits. They reveal structural weaknesses in the partner countries, including continued rent seeking, market segmentation, a weak modern private sector and...

This paper introduces an alternative indicator to evaluate the external sector behavior of a country or region. The objective of this indicator, titled “The External Sector Vulnerability Monitoring Index” (henceforth ESVM) (λ), is to offer policy-makers and researchers a new analytical tool...