In addition to being one of the most isolated countries in the world, North Korea has been the target of sanctions and trade restrictions in recent years. This paper examines the trade patterns of North Korea with its 19 major trading partners over the period 1989-2016. Moreover, the paper...

The Himalayas are of great strategic importance for China and India but the remote region remains relatively underdeveloped. This paper conducts a comparative analysis of China's Tibet and India's Ladakh with the aim of identifying common and idiosyncratic factors relevant for local economic...

Interregional transfers can smooth shocks to regional revenue and prevent spending from varying across time. This paper estimates the amounts of expenditure smoothing provided by interregional net transfers to China's provinces over the 1952-2001 period. The findings indicate that net transfers...

Since the early 1990s, the Greater Tumen Initiative (GTI) has emerged as one of the major platforms for cross-border regional integration in Northeast Asia. Founded officially in 1995 with the support of UNDP, it was given a major boost in 2005 as China, South Korea, Russia, and Mongolia took...

Over the past decade, the Russian government has embarked on an ambitious program of economic development in the Russian Far East (RFE), envisioning the transformation of the region into a hub for trade with the Asia Pacific. This paper explores the extent of RFE's trade integration with both...

Regional economies in emerging countries vary greatly in terms of their global integration. External shocks, therefore, require adjustment mechanisms that reflect local conditions. This paper focuses on the role of real exchange rates (RER) in the economic performance of regions. In particular,...

Rapid growth in large emerging economies has been spread unequally across their regions leading to growing income disparities. This paper examines the distribution of regional output per capita and the evolution of its shape in Brazil, China, India, and Russia from the mid-1990s to the...