"Despite soft and fragmented regionalism, intraregional flows of trade, labor, and capital grew rapidly in Asia over the last few decades. However, in recent years, there has been retrogression in all the three areas basically associated with the slowdown in growth and departure from the East...

In joining the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and ASEAN Free Trade Area (AFTA), the governments of Cambodia, Lao PDR, Myanmar, and Viet Nam have agreed to comply with the Common Effective Preferential Tariff (CEPT) Scheme, which reduces intra-ASEAN tariff rates on certain imports...

"While decentralization of education in DMCs has largely been driven by fiscal constraints, it has also been motivated by concerns about the effectiveness of a centralized system in delivering education services. The statistics are revealing: while virtually all DMCs have made impressive gains...

"Opening of financial services has enormous policy implications for a member country. As demonstrated by the 1997 Asian crisis, mismanagement of financial opening may lead to disastrous economic consequences. Only prudent financial policies, including implementation of commitments under the...

"Indonesia has an impressive record of economic growth and poverty reduction over the past two decades. The growth-poverty nexus appears strong at the aggregate level. Newly constructed panel data on the country's 285 districts (kotamadyas/kabupatens), however, reveal huge differences in poverty...

This paper investigates the effects of the ongoing changes in industrial structures arising from technology evolution and financial liberalization on the correlations of international equity markets. Results point to the greater influence of industry structures on the international co-movements...

This brief explores the Asian Development Bank's technical assistance for expan"This paper begins by outlining the major preferential trade agreements (PTAs) in Asia and other regions and reviewing trends in trade flows. The paper uses a gravity model augmented with several sets of dummy...

This paper attempts to construct leading indicator systems for the Malaysian and Philippine economies using publicly available economic and financial data, with a view to predicting turning points of growth cycles in the two countries. The results show that during the sample period of January...

This paper examines how economic openness influences regional development in the Philippines. It first looks at the disparities in economic and social indicators across the country's 14 regions and over time. Metro Manila continues to tower over the national economic landscape, though economic...

The paper reviews the history and progress of understanding of development theory over the past 50 years. Development thinking has evolved from an early paradigm that focused on savings and capital investment to subsequent arguments favoring the inclusion of human capital, policy, technical...