Three major global crises since 2008 have pushed up public and external debt ratios and associated risks across much of Asia and the Pacific. This is confirmed by debt ratio projections and evidence of widening pockets of vulnerability picked up by regional heat maps in this paper. By and large,...

The central objective of our paper is to assess the opportunities and challenges for trade for Asian economies during the low-carbon transition. To do so, we examine the green trade patterns of Asian Development Bank member economies in the Asia and Pacific region between 1990 and 2019 based on...

Solar adoption exploded until 2015 in Bangladesh, setting a precedent for electrifying previously unconnected areas worldwide. This study tries to measure the welfare effects of solar adoption using the three rounds of the Bangladesh Integrated Household Surveys. We applied both ordinary least...

We arranged for trained undercover men and women to pose as potential clients and visit all 65 local financial advisory firms in Hong Kong, China. At financial planning firms, but not at securities firms, women were more likely than men to receive advice to buy only individual or only local...

In this paper, we identify the main fishing grounds and track the response of fishing vessels' activity to tropical cyclones (TCs) in the Philippines' Exclusive Economic Zone during 2012. We use satellite imagery from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to locate fishing vessels...

Over the past 2 decades, income inequality has moderated in three middle-income countries in Southeast Asia-the Philippines, Thailand, and Viet Nam-with multiple factors at play. In each country, wage, nonfarm business income, and overseas remittance concentrations declined as less well-off...

While there are growing concerns about population aging, some studies explore the possibility that population aging can give rise to a silver dividend that contributes to economic growth (ADB 2019). While the demographic dividend refers to the increase of the working-age population, the silver...

This paper investigates whether the uncovered interest parity (UIP) will hold more firmly if the local currency bond markets (LCBMs) are more developed, and the presence of nonbank financial institutions (NBFIs) is expanded. Deviations in UIP decrease as LCBMs develop, while the patterns of the...

We study the interaction between transit improvements and land use policies in the context of Bengaluru, one of India's largest cities. The city inaugurated a metro system in 2011. Yet it has low building heights even near metro stations, reflecting low floor-area ratio limits. We construct a...

This paper provides estimates of the impact of demographic change on labor productivity growth, relying on annual data over 1961-2018 for a panel of 90 advanced and emerging economies. We find that increases in both the young and old population shares have significant negative effects on labor...