A key lesson of the 2007-2009 global financial crisis was the importance of containing systemic financial risk and the need for a “macroprudential” approach to surveillance and regulation that can identify system-wide risks and take appropriate actions to maintain financial stability. By...

The repercussions of the Great East Japan Earthquake on 11 March 2011 spread far beyond the geographical areas directly affected. The disaster also highlighted Japan's many other structural challenges besides reconstruction needs, including persistently low growth, population aging and low...

Widespread liberalization in the 1980s and 1990s enabled the freer movement of capital across international borders. Alongside large and often volatile movements in capital flows, risks to macro stability and the health of the financial system have led many countries to reconsider the wisdom of...

Infrastructure connectivity in Northeast Asia — comprising the northeastern People's Republic of China, Japan, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, the Republic of Korea, Mongolia, and the Russian Far East — has been hindered by limited intergovernmental cooperation. The paper finds...

The aftermath of the global financial crisis of 2007-08 underlined the importance of maintaining fiscal space and fiscal sustainability. Even though many Asian economies implemented fiscal stimulus policies during the crisis period, their fiscal conditions generally improved rapidly thereafter,...

Motivated by the proliferation of free trade agreements (FTAs) in Asia over the last decade, this paper studies the challenges faced by the Asian “noodle bowl” — overlapping, multiple trade rules, regulations, and standards in Asia — in the process of regional and global trade...

The Japanese government's response to the financial crisis in the 1990s was late, unprepared and insufficient; it failed to recognize the severity of the crisis, which developed slowly; faced no major domestic or external constraints; and lacked an adequate legal framework for bank resolution....

This is a substantially revised version of the paper presented to the Symposium on Asian Economic Integration organized by Nanyang Technology University in Singapore, 4-September 2008. The author is grateful to Teresa Carpenter for providing comments on an earlier version and to Pradumna B. Rana...

The failure to spot emerging systemic risk and prevent the current global financial crisis warrants a reexamination of the approach taken so far to crisis prevention. The paper argues that financial crises can be prevented, as they build up over time due to policy mistakes and eventually erupt...