Four environmental dimensions of energy security - climate change, air pollution, water availability and quality, and land-use change - and the environmental impact of 13 energy systems on each are discussed in this paper. Climate change threatens more land, people, and economies in Asia and...

We document the likely importance of district governance and teacher management policies in relation to student learning in Indonesian primary schools. As the responsibility to deliver primary education has been decentralized to district governments, we expect district specific variations in...

We study changes in 130 countries' indices of revealed comparative advantage for 1,240 products between 1995 and 2010, to answer: (i) whether export diversification is path-dependent, and whether it is more difficult to diversify into more sophisticated products; and (ii) whether education helps...

Investments in agricultural research and extension have consistently demonstrated high rates of return in Asia and the Pacific. However, the recent global food crisis exposed the vulnerability of food supply systems and reversed many past achievements in the fight against hunger and...

The recent decline in gross domestic product (GDP) growth in India raised a debate about whether it is a trend or a business cycle slowdown. We observe a cyclical downturn post-global financial crisis due to external and domestic conditions. With global recovery strengthening and appropriate...

In recent years, inequality has risen in the region alongside rapid economic growth. The widening income gap strengthens the case for a government response, and fiscal policy is one of the most suitable policy instruments to promote a more equitable society that provides opportunities for all....

Advanced economies have a significantly longer history of using fiscal policy to tackle inequality and promote inclusive growth than those in developing Asia. Therefore, as developing Asia explores the more active use of fiscal policy for inclusive purposes, it can learn from the experiences of...

During the last few years, the newly coined term middle-income trap has been widely used by policymakers to refer to the middle-income economies that seem to be stuck in the middle-income range. However, there is no accepted definition of the term in the literature. In this paper, we study...

This paper asks, first, whether today's developing economies can achieve high-income status without first building large manufacturing sectors. We find that practically every economy that enjoys a high income today experienced a manufacturing employment share in excess of 18%-20% sometime since...

From 1962 to 2013, the People's Republic of China's (PRC's)agricultural employment share declined from 82% to 31%. The transfer of workers out of low-productivity agriculture is a fundamental pillar of the PRC's aspirations to progress and eventually become a high-income economy. We hypothesize...