Infrastructure development in Southeast Asia has been financed mainly by public funds, which leave wide gaps in majority of countries. Governments have tried to attract the private sector by offering various schemes under public–private partnership (PPP). Typically, PPP contributes less than...

The design of alternative tariff structures can serve as a low-cost and effective tool in achieving higher take-up of basic services among poor households while allowing the provider to recover costs. A contingent valuation survey from the Water Supply and Sanitation Project of the Asian...

The paper discusses key challenges faced throughout the Asia and the Pacific region as a number of its developing economies graduate from low-income status to middle-income status at the same time as the region remains home to the majority of the world's poor people and a number of fragile...

Despite solid evidence regarding the large benefits of reducing disaster risk, it has remained difficult to motivate sustained investment into disaster risk reduction (DRR). Recently, international policy debate has started to emphasize the need for focusing DRR investment toward actions that...

Private investment in Malaysia has been sluggish since the Asian financial crisis. One explanation is that the growing presence of government-linked corporations (GLCs) has been crowding out private investment. For the first time, we provide empirical evidence on the relationship between GLC...

This paper reviews what the profession has learned during the last 25 years about East Asia's growth using growth accounting exercises and estimations of production functions. The publication of Alwyn Young's (1992, 1994, 1995) and Jong-Il Kim and Lawrence Lau's (1994) studies, and Paul...

We empirically examine and compare the determinants of producer and consumer price inflation in 10 Asian economies during 2000–2015. In this connection, we also investigate the pass-through of global oil prices, global food prices, and exchange rates to domestic producer and consumer prices....

This paper analyzes why the Philippines' growth performance has improved significantly in recent years. As in the medium to long term actual growth adjusts to potential, we posit that the reason behind this improvement is that the country's potential growth is increasing. We derive an estimate...

Work experience is a key variable in earnings function estimates and wage gap decompositions. Because data on actual work experience are rare, studies commonly use proxies, such as potential experience. But potential experience is identical for all individuals of the same age and level of...

Populations become increasingly feminized with age. Since older women are more vulnerable to poverty, they may find it more difficult than men to access health care. This study examines factors that may constrain older persons in Southeast Asia from meeting their health-care needs when sick. Our...