The paper argues that East Asian regionalism is fragile because (i) each nation's industrial competitiveness depends on the smooth functioning of "Factory Asia" - in particular for intraregional trade; (ii) the unilateral tariff-cutting that created Factory Asia is not subject to WTO discipline...

In this paper, we investigate the degree of real economic interdependence between emerging Asia and major industrial countries to shed light on the heated debate over the "decoupling" of emerging Asia. We first document the evolution of macroeconomic interdependence for emerging Asian economies...

This paper documents and analyzes the rise of emerging East Asian economies as major international investors. Foreign direct investment (FDI) from these economies is rising faster than their economic growth, trade, and inward FDI, and the region is by far the most important investor from the...

The issue of decoupling is controversial. On the back of Asia's sustained high growth, the hypothesis that the region's business cycles would become increasingly independent of the global trend gained considerable attention. Asia was nonetheless hit hard by the global financial crisis and...