Does voter turnout affect policy outcomes? This long-standing question has been re-visited recently with close empirical scrutiny. These studies, however, commonly suffer from a problem of omitting variables correlated with both causal and outcome variables: specifically, immeasurable political...

This paper examines the move toward greater harmonisation in banking supervision in Asia. Central banks in the Asia Pacific region have strengthened their cooperation through various channels. Equally important, international institutions including the Bank for International Settlements have...

In this paper I examine whether stringent environmental standards reduce the international competitiveness of environmentally sensitive industries using a comprehensive dataset of trade flows of environmentally sensitive goods (ESGs) disaggregated at the four-digit level of the Standard...

This paper uses Chinese and ASEAN+3 industry panel data to measure variations in mark-up adjustment behaviour that is associated with the exchange rate changes across export destination markets. Exports that are substitutes for local products exhibit a high degree of mark-up adjustment, which...

Economic policy change within states is increasingly being driven by external political and economic pressures consequent upon the internationalisation of markets, the growth of economic interdependence and the increasing effectiveness of multilateral regimes as sponsors of trade liberalisation....

This paper examines issues of corporate governance arising from the activities of financial institutions and markets. It is argued that governance problems are particularly severe in financial institutions vis-a-vis firms in other industries, and particularly important for society given the...

This paper analyses distributive policy-making in Japan using a natural experimental situation from August 1993 to March 1995. During this period, the partisan makeup of the ruling coalition in the Lower House dramatically changed without dissolution of the House. By comparing FY1994 and FY1995...

This article compares features of Japan's banking crisis with the experiences of other industrial economies. Using a probit statistical prediction model, we find that Japan's banking crisis follows a pattern found in many other industrial countries, i.e. formal tests do not distinguish Japan as...