This paper presents the state of infrastructure in developing Asian countries. It applies two distinct approaches (growth regressions and growth accounting) to analyze the link between infrastructure, growth, and productivity. The main conclusion is that a number of countries in developing Asia...

This study reviews and analyzes the changes in total factor productivity (TFP) growth in 12 Asian economies – the People's Republic of China; Hong Kong, China; India; Indonesia; the Republic of Korea; Malaysia; Pakistan; the Philippines; Singapore; Taipei, China; Thailand; and Viet Nam – for the...

We provide new insights into the role of individual inventors in innovation. We focus our analysis on prolific inventors in China, Japan, Korea and Taiwan. We analyse patents issued by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office to thousands of inventors from those countries between 1975 and 2010 to...

The underdeveloped service sector in Asia has the potential to become a new engine of economic growth for developing Asia, which has traditionally relied on export-oriented manufacturing to power its growth. The central objective of this paper is to empirically analyze the prospects for the...

We quantify the role of financial frictions and the initial misallocation of resources in explaining development dynamics. Following a reform that triggers efficient reallocation of resources, our model economy with financial frictions converges slowly to the new steady state--it takes twice as...

Using DEA Window Analysis and Tobit regression for 30 Vietnamese banks over 1995-2011, we examine the effects of bank reforms on cost, revenue and profit efficiency. We find that state-owned banks (SOBs) are more efficient than joint-stock banks (JSBs). Banks selected by foreign investors are...

Within the banking efficiency analysis literature there is a dearth of studies which have considered how banks have 'survived' the Asian financial crisis of the late 1990s. Considering the profound changes that have occurred in the region's financial systems since then, such an analysis is both...

This paper undertakes a cross-country analysis of productivity growth at both the aggregate and sectoral level. It finds that Asia's remarkable output growth over the past 40 years reflected both high investment, and rapid productivity increases. These factors were in turn supported by the...

This paper examines the impact of education, trade, governance and distance on technology diffusion and TFP in Latin America – specifically South America and Mexico (SAM) – and East Asia, over the 32 years preceding the Great Recession (1976–2007). Findings are: i) TFP rises with...

This paper uses a theory-based measure of productivity-based comparative advantage to examine the trade performance of developing Asian economies in manufacturing and services over the 1995–2011 period. We find that the growth in service exports was nearly as rapid as that in manufacturing...