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...

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 advanced...

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...

Severe disruptions in school education during the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic has impacted children through their formative years which will affect their employment opportunities and earning potential for many years after school ages. This paper examines the medium-to-long-term...

This paper investigates the dynamic impact of social distancing policy on coronavirus disease (COVID-19) infection control, mobility of people, and consumption expenditures in the Republic of Korea. We employ structural and threshold vector autoregressive (VAR) models using big-data-driven...

We synthetically assess the three major transmission channels of international business cycles: bilateral trade, foreign direct investment (FDI), and portfolio investment flows between economies with multiple fixed effects. Using the data of 72 economies during 2010-2019, we find that real and...

This paper investigates whether the uncovered interest parity (UIP) will hold more firmly if the local currency bond markets (LCBMs) are more developed, and the presence of nonbank financial institutions (NBFIs) is expanded. Deviations in UIP decrease as LCBMs develop, while the patterns of the...

This paper investigates the effects of the ongoing changes in industrial structures arising from technology evolution and financial liberalization on the correlations of international equity markets. Results point to the greater influence of industry structures on the international co-movements...

The expected slowdown in the economy of the United States (US) has ignited increasing concerns over the short-term growth prospect of East Asia. Historically, a US slowdown has often been associated with a global slowdown. East Asia has been particularly vulnerable to slowing US growth, given...

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...