In 2008–09 the world experienced the most severe financial and economic crisis since the Great Depression. The global financial crisis is attributed to a variety of factors, such as developments in the subprime mortgage sector, excessive leverage, lax financial regulation and supervision, and...

This paper analyzes the role of processing trade in the People’s Republic of China (PRC)’s bilateral trade balances and the impact of the yuan’s appreciation on processing trade. The analysis is based on panel data covering the PRC’s 51 trading partners from 1993–2008. The empirical...

This paper analyzes the role and scope of macroprudential policy in preventing financial instability in the context of East Asian economies. It analyzes the behavior of the housing market in a dynamic setting to identify some of the factors responsible for the volatility of housing markets and...

This paper illustrates the upgrading experiences of the automotive and hard disk drive (HDD) industries in Thailand, chosen because of their outstanding export performance in the developing world. An understanding of their upgrading experiences can shed some light on the ongoing debate regarding...

Notwithstanding incumbency advantages and network effects enjoyed by the United States (US) dollar, considerations about the stability of its value have led Asian countries to fear they are holding their foreign exchange reserves in a depreciating currency. At the same time, it pays for the...

Several countries have employed countercyclical fiscal policy to ameliorate the impact of the global financial crisis. This study identifies some of the issues and policy implications associated with this policy response in developing countries. Included are case studies of four developing...

This paper discusses the increasingly important roles of Asian official institutions in the new global financial landscape and the reasons that have led to the build-up of massive public surpluses. We re-examine the role of sovereign wealth funds (SWFs) as the de facto "global lender of last...

The “decoupling” of East Asia from its economic interactions—both in trade and finance—with the rest of the world refers to the phenomenon of a weakening of the impact of demand and supply shocks emanating from the advanced countries on the region’s economic performance since the early...

In view of Asia's huge infrastructure needs, as well as the reduced demand for exports due to the ongoing global financial and economic crisis, infrastructure projects offer a way of increasing regional demand and intraregional trade. This policy brief proposes various ways to tap Asia's huge...

This study investigates the impact of global crisis shocks on India's trade and industry. The authors use panel data modeling and vector autoregression techniques to understand the dynamic effects of global crisis shocks on Indian industry and trade. Changes in trade composition are positively...