This paper examines the relationship between productivity differentials and firm turnover in Vietnamese manufacturing. We utilize firm-level data between 2000 and 2009, including the year 2007, when Vietnam joined the World Trade Organization (WTO). Our major findings are twofold. First, the...

Myanmar has entered a new era of all-round reforms. Donors and foreign investors are mainly interested in Yangon, while there has been a delay in the Dawei deep sea project, the Dawei Special Economic Zone project and the road connection to Thailand. The change in circumstances poses a question...

This paper sheds light on the issue of SME financing in selected Asian economies using a unique sample survey. It elaborates on (i) the key sources of external finance for SMEs (ii) the extent to which, if at all, the SME sector as identified by firm size, country and in aggregate for a sample...

Food security is fundamental to human security and sustainable development. As ASEAN moves towards an integrated community of caring societies in 2015 and beyond, we argue that food security should be an integral part of the ASEAN community building agenda and deserves more attention than it...

This study uses time series data of selected ASEAN and East Asia countries to investigate the patterns of price and income elasticity of energy demand. Applying a dynamic log-linear energy demand model, both short-run and long-run price and income elasticities were estimated by country. The...

This paper explores innovations in index-based risk transfer products (IBRTPs) as a means to address important insurance market imperfections that have precluded the emergence and sustainability of formal insurance markets in developing countries, where uninsured natural disaster risk remains a...

ASEAN countries are discussing a possible template for trade in goods chapter of so-called ASEAN++ FTA (also known as RCEP). Analyses of tariff structures under the current ASEAN+1 FTAs give insights on possible approaches as well as challenges in this discussion. To meet 90% or 95% tariff...

This paper investigates the relationship between firm-level upgrading and buyer-seller business networks in order to better understand how and to whom technology transfer occurs. Using firm’s self-reported buyer and supplier network data from business–to–business (B2B) markets in Southeast...

This paper attempts to investigate the features of development and restructuring patterns of regional production/distribution networks, mainly in machinery sectors, using finely disaggregated international trade data. More specifically, the paper first studies the developing patterns of...

This paper examines how the Japanese firms’ export decision is affected by the availability of information on export markets, focusing on whether the availability of such information has a different impact on the export decision between large firms and small and medium-sized enterprises...