It is sometimes claimed that free trade agreements (FTAs) between large countries and smaller developing countries serve as "policy anchors" by acting as a mechanism for the smaller developing country to make credible commitments to policy reform which they might not otherwise make. Such policy...

By any indicator, Indonesia, the fourth most populous nation on earth, is a development success story. Yet 20 years after a deep economic and political crisis, it is still in some respects an economy in transition. The country recovered from the 1997-98 crisis and navigated the path from...