As part of its trade policy, Singapore has recently embarked on what can broadly be termed "new regionalism". This is characterized by its new-found desire to enter into Free Trade Agreements (FTAs) with the economic powerhouses (Japan and the United States in particular) as well as with a...

This study is part of an ESCAP/UNCTAD/UNDP regional project. The objectives for the Singapore case-study include identifying the products affected by the GSP withdrawal and assessing how Singapore can regain its competitiveness, which may involve the restructuring of such industries and, if need...

The organization of this study reflects the importance of such strategic factors as determinants of trade and investment. Chapter 2 focuses on the home environment of Japanese firms, and with comparisons drawn wih the US economy, illustrate how, as the economy has restructured and modernized in...

This paper empirically revisits the impact of birthplace diversity on economic growth. We use panel data on US states over the 1960-2010 period. This rich data set allows us to better deal with endogeneity issues and to conduct a large set of robustness checks. Our results suggest that diversity...

It is almost self-evident that social interactions can determine economic behavior and outcomes. Yet, information on social ties does not exist in most publicly available and widely used datasets. We present results on the identification of social networks from observational panel data that...