Limited data on micro, small, and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs) make it difficult for governments to design appropriate MSME policies in Asia and the Pacific. To identify factors affecting MSME development and promote evidence-based policymaking, we propose a probabilistic principal component...

This volume helps fill the gap left from insufficiently archived details of family planning programs carried out in many developing countries from the 1950s through the 1980s of their operations, their commonalities, and their differences, with much useful information and informed analysis. The...

The present study investigates the effect of regional and bilateral trade agreements supported by institutional framework on bilateral trade between India and selected South and Central Asian countries. The augmented gravity model that corrects for zero trade, endogeneity and heterogeneity is...

Income convergence refers to the idea that poor countries grow more quickly than rich ones and catch up in terms of per capita income; as a result, the per capita income of integrated nations eventually converges. Beta convergence suggests that less developed nations grow more quickly than more...

The notion of the “Silk Road” that the German geographer Ferdinand von Richthofen invented in the 19th century has lost attraction to scholars in light of large amounts of new evidence and new approaches. The handbook suggests new conceptual and methodological tools for researching ancient...

The study investigates the implementation of trade routes and their impact on the regional economic integration of Central and South Asia. It uses three indices, the Trade Complementarity Index (TCI), Similarity Index (SI), and Trade Diversification Index (TDI), to evaluate the level of regional...

The COVID-19 pandemic has badly affected economic activities. In emerging Asia, where small family businesses play central roles in their economies, previous studies found that the sector was hit particularly hard by the pandemic. However, little is known about how households have mitigated the...

A growing literature examines the roles of financial literacy in an individual's income, saving behavior, and the use of financial products including financial technology (fintech). However, no study has examined the effects of the financial literacy of family business owners on fintech use and...

Food insecurity has become of increasing concern following the economic downturn during the COVID-19 pandemic and the subsequent sharp rise in inflation, including food price inflation. To better understand the conditions of food insecurity and the impacts of inflation and other drivers of food...