The expected slowdown in the economy of the United States (US) has ignited increasing concerns over the short-term growth prospect of East Asia. Historically, a US slowdown has often been associated with a global slowdown. East Asia has been particularly vulnerable to slowing US growth, given...

"Nedelyn Magtibay-Ramos, Gemma Estrada, and Jesus Felipe provide an analysis of the business process outsourcing (BPO) industry in the Philippines. The paper provides a profile of the BPO sector; makes comparisons with other large BPO providers; and uses input–output tables to estimate...

Existing policy instruments for conserving tropical forests have shown limited success. This paper investigates the feasibility of improving the technical efficiency of the wood processing industry as an alternative approach to forest conservation, using sawmills in Sri Lanka as a case study....

A key legacy of the Asian financial crisis of 1997–1998 is a sustained drop-off in the investment rates of East Asian countries that were hardest hit by the crisis. We first review the stylized facts of investment in those countries, and then explore and evaluate the various possible...

Using the "trilemma indexes" developed by Aizenman et al. (2008) that measure the extent of achievement in each of the three policy goals in the trilemma - monetary independence, exchange rate stability, and financial openness - this paper examines how policy configurations affect macroeconomic...

The central objective of this paper is to empirically examine the issue of fiscal sustainability in developing Asia. To do so, we first diagnose the region's public finances by analyzing the evolution of key fiscal indicators over time and across subregions. We then estimate fiscal policy...

The global economic crisis has revealed that growth in East Asia is highly vulnerable to slowdown in exports to major advanced economies. This paper shows that in precrisis years, at least one third of growth in the People's Republic of China was due to exports, and this proportion was even...

This paper simulates the impact of a short-term shock originating from the global financial system on small open economies in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). The simulation uses empirically estimated general equilibrium models for Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, and...

Following independence from the former Soviet Union, Tajikistan inherited an extensive social protection system that included a range of cash and noncash benefits. While the economy is well into its transition from a centrally planned to a market-oriented economy, its social welfare policies...

The principal objective of this paper is to ascertain whether foreign direct investment (FDI) has statistically significant effects on host countries' economic performance, such as total factor productivity. Such effects are often referred to as FDI externalities or spillover effects. This paper...