Over the past two decades, ISEAS has compiled abridged articles that analyse key aspects of Southeast Asia’s development and the ASEAN process. The ASEAN Reader was published in 1992 just as the Cold War ended, while The Second ASEAN Reader came in 2003 in the wake of the 1997 Asian crisis and...

Twenty-five years ago, the governments of Singapore, Malaysia, and Indonesia agreed to jointly promote the city-state, the state of Johor in Malaysia, and the Riau Islands in Indonesia. Facilitated by common cultural references, a more distant shared history, and complementary attributes,...

This note examines how the network externalities of communications activities and trading opportunities interact to determine the structure of comparative advantage between countries. These interactions are obtained by constructing a two-country, two-sector model of trade involving a...

This paper estimates the value of superstitions by studying the auctions of vehicle license plates. We show that the value of superstitions is economically significant, which in turn justifies their persistence in human civilization. We also show that such a value, though based inherently on...

This paper estimates the value of superstitions by studying the auctions of vehicle license plates. We show that the value of superstitions is economically significant, which justifies their persistence in human civilization. We also document the changes of the value of superstitions across...

Diebold and Rudebusch (1991) and Haubrich (1993) argue that, when income follows a fractionally differenced process, the Deaton's excessive smoothness paradox can be resolved. A key to the success of their result relies on a valid test for fractional integration. However, most of the tests in...