Total debt in the People's Republic of China has increased significantly in recent years, mostly on account of nonfinancial corporate debt. Earning and the financial performance of corporate firms have weakened, and so has the asset quality of the financial sector. This paper assesses the...

This paper takes a first pass at assessing areas of implementation for distributed ledger (or blockchain) technology in the context of development finance. It identifies five use cases, including digital identity, trade finance, project aid monitoring, smart energy, and supply chain management....

Three major global crises since 2008 have pushed up public and external debt ratios and associated risks across much of Asia and the Pacific. This is confirmed by debt ratio projections and evidence of widening pockets of vulnerability picked up by regional heat maps in this paper. By and large,...

Since the early 1990s, India has embarked on economic reforms that have progressively opened up the country to international trade. This paper analyzes the effects of reform on India's trading structure from 1990 to 2006. It computes comparative advantage indicators on the basis of disaggregated...

The central objective of this paper is to empirically examine the issue of fiscal sustainability in developing Asia. To do so, we first diagnose the region's public finances by analyzing the evolution of key fiscal indicators over time and across subregions. We then estimate fiscal policy...

The paper develops a method to map global networks of production sharing and processing trade. Relying on highly detailed bilateral trade data across a matrix of 75 countries, a network index gauges countries' interdependence according to the extent of trade in parts and components for further...

The paper tabulates Myanmar's merchandise trade as reported by its partner countries, thereby circumventing the data constraints stemming from Myanmar's patchy trade records. It then estimates Myanmar's export potential, based on the bilateral export patterns observed for six other countries in...

This paper analyzes the role of complexity in production on the level of output and on its rate of growth. We develop an endogenous growth model with human capital accumulation, where increased complexity could exert either a positive or a negative effect on the level of output but always a...

We analyze the relationship between food security and trade, focusing on food importers' exposure to sudden market failures from relying on a narrow range of international suppliers. We compute a bilateral import penetration index (BIPI), which gauges the degree to which a country depends on...

There is no escaping Japan's competition in the world markets for goods, particularly in the automotive and electronics industries. Countries exporting to these markets are bound to feel the competitive pressure from a marked fall in the value of the yen. However, while some exporters will be...