This paper examines the impact of foreign participation in Korean Treasury Bond (KTB) futures and its role in price discovery for KTBs, using daily transactions data from the over-the-counter market for KTBs and from the Korea Exchange for the futures. Our analysis suggests that foreign trading...

This paper introduces a new index of financial inclusion for 151 economies using principal component analysis to compute weights for aggregating nine indicators of access, availability, and usage. It then assesses the impact of financial inclusion on poverty and income inequality. The results...

The global financial crisis of 2008–2009 illustrates how financial turmoil in advanced economies could trigger severe financial stress in emerging markets. Previous studies dealing with financial crises and contagion show the linkages through which financial stress are transmitted from...

Over the past 2 decades, income inequality has moderated in three middle-income countries in Southeast Asia-the Philippines, Thailand, and Viet Nam-with multiple factors at play. In each country, wage, nonfarm business income, and overseas remittance concentrations declined as less well-off...

Postcrisis policy responses tilted in favor of strengthening the global regulatory system and financial stability have limited the attention paid to the role of finance in supporting sustained economic growth and development. This has special implications for Asia which, despite being the new...

Local currency bond markets in emerging Asian economies have expanded dramatically since governments took steps to end the currency and maturity mismatches that savaged borrowers in the region's financial crisis nearly 20 years ago. Encouraged in part by regional cooperation programs such as the...

The issue of decoupling is controversial. On the back of Asia's sustained high growth, the hypothesis that the region's business cycles would become increasingly independent of the global trend gained considerable attention. Asia was nonetheless hit hard by the global financial crisis and...

Financial integration is a multidimensional process through which allocation of financial assets becomes increasingly borderless. This paper assesses the progress achieved thus far in capital market integration in Asia, and compares regional capital market integration with global financial...

Cross-border bank positions in Asia and the Pacific remain highly concentrated to few counterparties, exposing the region to financial risks and policy spillovers. Consequently, assessing the determinants and impacts of the region's cross-border banking concentration is relevant to the design of...

This study empirically examines how the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) has impacted foreign direct investment (FDI), using the quarterly data on bilateral FDI flows from 173 home to 192 host countries from the first quarter of 2019 to the second quarter of 2021. We measure the severity of...