Papua New Guinea (PNG) has faced a foreign exchange (forex) shortage since 2015. To protect reserves, the Bank of PNG has resorted to forex rationing that led to a large backlog of orders and import compression. This paper surveys the structure of PNG's forex market and analyzes recent market...

The paper applies quantile regression technique, specifically, quantile vector autoregression to stochastic debt sustainability analysis (DSA) and the construction of public debt fan charts. Stochastic approach to DSA typically uses standard ordinary least squares vector autoregression (OLS VAR)...

The distributional impacts of fiscal policies are instrumental in reducing inequality in countries like the Philippines, where inequality has been persistently high. This paper assesses how equitable various taxes and transfers in the Philippines are by deriving the elasticities of Atkinson and...

This paper empirically investigates the state of trade interdependency for coronavirus disease (COVID-19) essential medical goods-vaccines and their value chains, personal protective equipment, and diagnostic test kits-across 29 Asia and the Pacific economies. Expanding on Hayakawa and Imai...

In cities with conservative norms or high crime, female workers may face greater restrictions on their, physical mobility. This limits women’s labor market opportunities and the pool of workers that firms, can attract. In this study, we experimentally vary access to a transport service in...

This paper investigates the effects of monetary policy shocks on income and wealth inequalities in the Republic of Korea. Using the detailed Household Income and Expenditure Survey and Korean Labor and Income Panel Study data, we construct measures of income and wealth inequality for the Korean...

How did developing Asian economies perform with respect to tax revenue mobilization before and during the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic? An analysis of data from developing Asia suggests that both short-run and long-run tax buoyancies, a measure of how tax revenue responds to gross...

Severe disruptions in school education during the coronavirus disease (COVID–19) pandemic has impacted children through their formative years which will affect their employment opportunities and earning potential for many years after school ages. This paper examines the medium-to-long-term...

This paper investigates the dynamic impact of social distancing policy on coronavirus disease (COVID-19) infection control, mobility of people, and consumption expenditures in the Republic of Korea. We employ structural and threshold vector autoregressive (VAR) models using big-data-driven...

This paper investigates the trade effects of transportation infrastructure reforms funded by the Asian Development Bank (ADB) in the Central Asia Regional Economic Cooperation (CAREC) program. To do this, we applied a combination of geographic information systems (GIS), econometric, and...