This note considers the nature of the cybersecurity concerns that have been raised in the decoupling debate and their implications for national security, contrasts those with the nature of the national security concerns that have traditionally been included in the rules-based trade framework,...

With an increasing share of global commerce taking place in digital form or facilitated by digital platforms, it is becoming increasingly important to update the rules-based framework to accommodate and enable the development of the intangibles-based data-driven economy while reconciling the...

While the digital transformation opens up new opportunities for convergence of the global south in terms of technological leapfrogging, knowledge spillovers and access to new market platforms, it also throws up some daunting competitive and governance challenges. These include: keeping pace with...

This note takes a contrarian position on the significance of China’s subsidies, which are generally viewed as intractable and damaging to the rules-based system. It considers the implications of Lerner Symmetry for the aggregate effect of China’s subsidies and the implications of comparative...

Global trade is being reshaped by major secular trends, geopolitical tensions, and major trade and investment policy departures that are raising the importance of the pre-modern trade routes that linked the Afro-Eurasian world island through the Indo-Pacific while reducing the relative...

Africa is becoming increasingly prominent in trade policy and promotion initiatives due to sustained growth in purchasing power and trade in the region. The major economies are all targeting Africa, including the European Union with its Economic Partnership Agreements; China with its Belt and...

The most contentious and problematic issue negotiated in the Brexit deal was the so-called “level playing field”, which was to be preserved by the parties through “rebalancing” provisions. This note takes up the issue of the meaning of a “level playing field” in light of fundamental...

Analysis of the financial crisis in East Asia has focussed on the most-affected East Asian economies, namely: Thailand, South Korea, Indonesia, Malaysia, and to a lesser extent the Philippines. However, these economies account for less than 15 percent of the GDP of East Asia. Japan, which...

This paper takes up the question of whether market concerns about global imbalances in general, and the US external deficit in particular, are well founded. It reviews four arguments bearing on how concerned we should be about the widening of the US current account deficit since the Asian...

Regulations established for economic agents and policy rules established for governments incorporate distilled wisdom based on (usually unhappy) experience as to what works and what doesn't. At times, however, these rules require action that appears to run contrary to common sense. At the heart...