This report presents the research initiative to explore an alternative methodology for extrapolating purchasing power parities (PPPs) for 21 participating economies in the Asia and Pacific region. The 2009 PPP Update provides an intermediate benchmark and more firmly based real expenditures and...

Prepared by the Office of the General Counsel under the Law and Policy Reform program of the Asian Development Bank (ADB), this publication highlights the significant impact of ADB’s technical assistance for legal development in the People’s Republic of China (PRC). It also demonstrates the...

Mongolia experienced a challenging transition from socialist economy to market economy from 1990 onwards. Its commercial insurance market is still at its infancy, with gross written premiums in 2013 amounting to only 0.54% of gross domestic production. ADB undertook this technical assistance...

Corporate governance principles provide guidance on how corporations should operate and can be useful to attract foreign investments. In the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), countries use national methodologies to assess corporate governance performance of publicly listed...

The Quarterly Economic Update (QEU) provides a comprehensive and updated analysis of the recent economic performance of Sri Lanka. The QEU for July 2012 highlights the expected economic slowdown in 2012. With inflation trending up, monetary tightening is expected to continue for a longer period....

This paper explores the potential of microfinance in post-conflict economies, and speci-fically examines policy considerations for the case of Iraq. It presents important condi-tions of the post-conflict economy, and examines three critical requirements for suc-cessful microfinance operations,...

This study explores individual and country-level environmental drivers of informal “seed” investment. We examine four types of informal investors based on business ownership experience (or no such experience) and close family relationship with investee (or no such relationship): “classic love...

We investigate whether the supply of Venture Capital (VC) in Germany is driven by spatial influences. The study is based on information from more than 300 VC investments made in Germany between 2004 and 2005. We find evidence that the geographical distance between a VC company and the portfolio...

It is now widely acknowledged that the entrepreneurial capacity in an economy is a key determinant of economic growth and productivity improvements. This paper uses survey data from the 15 EU Member States and the US to establish the effect of demographic and other variables on latent and actual...