ASEAN has been deepening intra-regional integration at the same time that it has been forming various cooperative arrangements with its partners, and its Member Countries have been pursuing individual trade accords. Which would be the optimal configuration for ASEAN? In this paper, we evaluate...

Key Features:It has a series of chapters on the European experience, and how they might apply to new regional initiatives in East AsiaIt includes an extensive documentation and analysis of East Asian integration proposals and analyzes their respective economic and political meritsSome chapters...

Key Features:Focus on ASEAN economic integration from a variety of perspectives (rather than just trade)Strong emphasis on the importance of institutions and economic integration as part of economic policy reform in the ASEAN countries.

Capitalizing on the most recent estimates of agricultural price distortions in China and in other countries, this paper assesses the economic and poverty impact of global and domestic trade reform in China. It also examines the interplay between the trade reforms and factor market reforms aimed...

Traditional computable general equilibrium (CGE) models based on the Armington assumption fail to capture the extensive margin of trade, and thereby underestimate the trade and welfare effects of trade opening. To address this problem, this paper introduces the Melitz (2003) theoretical...

The proliferation of preferential trade agreements in Asia may result in a number of hub-and-spoke configurations, with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, People's Republic of China, and Japan competing as regional hubs of bilateral free trade areas. Using a newly developed global...

Capitalizing on recent estimates of infrastructure financing requirements in Asia, this paper frames a scenario for infrastructure development in the region and estimates the external effects of infrastructure investment. It also assesses quantitatively the economy-wide welfare effects of...

Capitalizing on the most recent worldwide estimates of the impacts of climate change on agricultural production, this paper assesses the economic effects of climate change for Southeast Asian countries through 2080. The results suggest that the aggregate impacts of agricultural damages caused by...

Hertel and Zhai evaluate the impact of two key factor market distortions in China on rural-urban inequality and income distribution. They find that creation of a fully functioning land market has a significant impact on rural-urban inequality. This reform permits agricultural households to focus...