This chapter picks up the century-old communist idea that this system will one day evolve to dominate the capitalist system. Now that China is successfully catching up, it not only has gained considerable weight globally but it is also an emerging power in its own region of South East Asia....

The paper contributes to the ongoing debate on the natural resource curse, which refers to a negative link between natural resource abundance and economic growth. It shows empirically that resource-rich countries appear to have a less developed financial system and investigates a potential...