Recent developments in South Asian countries, especially the re-emergence of democratic governments, new growth momentum despite the global economic downturn and greater openness, warrant a fresh look at the region's prospects for economic integration. On the basis of a thorough review of the...

This paper explores the long-term challenges for trade and foreign direct investment (FDI) of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). The region has emerged as an important production base for multinational corporations by joining East Asia's supply chains. While proceeding to...

The Middle East was once seen as a medieval great globalized force. Nowadays it shows one of the lowest intra-regional trade in the world and therefore it is claimed that the region is poorly integrated. Yet, with the steady flow of workers across national borders of the Middle East is this...

The Middle East was once seen as a medieval great globalized force. Nowadays it shows one of the lowest intra-regional trade in the world and therefore it is claimed that the region is poorly integrated. Yet, with the steady .ow of workers across national borders of the Middle East is this...

This paper studies the degree of integration of China's domestic market and investigates the determinants of inter-provincial trade barriers under the rubric endogenoustrade policy theory. I rely on industry-level trade flows extracted from provincial input-output tables to develop a model that...

This paper studies the connection between trade and growth in the context of a partial and inconsistent liberalization process in a specific Eastern European country in transition towards market economy, namely, the Republic of Belarus. The analysis of the country trade patterns during the USSR...

The 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations, ASEAN, is arguably the most durable and successful regional grouping in the developing world. Established in 1967, it has contributed greatly to regional harmony and prosperity. ASEAN is characterized by great internal diversity, generally...

The analysis of business cycle synchronization levels has become a key point in the discussion of the processes of international economic integration. Economists show a particular interest in analyzing the frequency of processes of business cycle convergence and divergence (decoupling) in the...

We analyze whether social distress from income comparisons affects attitudes towards the integration of economies. Using Germany’s division as natural experiment, we find that East Germans’ feelings of relative deprivation with respect to better-off West Germans led to significantly more...

This paper documents the novel fact that Regional Trade Agreements (RTA) decrease bilateral trade imbalances as measured by conventional measure of the net export share in gross trade. While on average an RTA decreases bilateral trade imbalance by 7%, greater trade integration through a deeper...