This book makes concrete macroeconomic policy recommendations for Asian economies aimed at minimizing the impacts of an economic and financial downturn, and setting the stage for an early return to sustainable growth. The focus is on short-term measures related to the cycle. The three main areas...

Using a global general equilibrium trade model, this paper assesses the long-term implications of global rebalancing for Asian economies and explores the benefits of China-Japan-United States (US) integration. The analysis suggests that consumption evaporation, a growth slowdown in the US, and...

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...

This paper examines the question of how to design an optimal and sustainable exchange rate regime in a world economy of two interdependent countries. It develops a Barro-Gordon type two-country model and compares noncooperative equilibria under different assumptions of monetary policy...

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...