This paper attempts to identify structural constraints to growth and exports within Cambodia's key industries and to consider the policy actions needed to reduce obstacles to trade. The paper places special emphasis on Cambodia's exports to the People's Republic of China (PRC), given the major...

Despite the central role of the People's Republic of China (PRC) in global parts and components trade, most previous studies on the PRC's parts and components trade have been limited to a particular trade partner or some specific industries. The central objective of this paper is to provide a...

This paper assesses the quality of Cambodia's export and import statistics by comparing them with the statistics of its trade partners. The paper identifies inaccuracies in trade statistics caused by two types of misclassifications: commodity misclassification and direction misclassification. We...

What kind of technical assistance and capacity building benefits do developing countries enjoy if they sign a free trade agreement (FTA) with developed countries? This is a frequently asked question among developing country officials involved in FTA policymaking. While we tend to normatively...

This paper examines the impact of intra-Asia exchange rate volatility on intra-Asia trade in primary goods, intermediate goods, equipment goods, and consumption goods from 1980 to 2009. For Asia, the evidence shows that as intraregional exchange rate volatility increases, intraregional exports...

The determinants of a business friendly environment that underpin rapid and sustained economic growth include the macroeconomic and financial market environments, infrastructure, labor market skills and efficiency, and governance and institutions. Obtaining licenses and credit to start a...

While openness to trade is a well-recognized hallmark of the Asian growth model, another component of the model is a leapfrogging strategy—the use of policies to guide industrial structural transformation ahead of a country's factor endowment. Does the leapfrogging strategy work? Opinions vary...

This paper develops an analytical framework that can be used to anticipate problems in the banking system and enable supervisors to take mitigating actions at an early stage. This paper has two components. First, it develops an early warning indicator that is intended to capture a number of the...

Global production sharing—the breakup of a production process into vertically separated stages that are carried out in different countries—has become one of the defining characteristics of world trade over the past few decades. Any analysis of trade patterns or its determinants that ignores...

The goal of this paper is to provide stylized facts on recovery from economic downturns and to evaluate the role of macroeconomic policies in promoting recovery. In particular, we examine gross domestic product (GDP) recessions and financial downturns (credit contractions and stock price...