This paper analyzes detailed differences in patterns of financial development across the major Asian economies, including three of the region's largest economies (China, Japan and South Korea), to understand how these differences might affect possibilities for greater regional financial...

We construct an index of financial development for 23 Asian economies based on subindices of access, depth, and efficiency of financial institutions and markets and find evidence that economies with weaker financial systems are catching up to the Asian benchmark economies, namely Hong Kong,...