When debating the pros and cons of economic regionalism, haven't we focused enough on trade in goods at the expense of services? This article argues that regionalism is certainly a building block, not a stumbling block to a multilateral trading system, using the services liberalization scheme of...

This paper analyzes the World Trade Organization’s (WTO) Trade Policy Review: Cambodia, the first completed for the country. The report highlights Cambodia’s rapid economic growth after one of the world’s worst genocides in the 20th century. This growth has been underpinned by open trade...

ASEAN has significant achievements to its credit. It is a durable and effective functioning entity, more so than any other regional organization in the developing world. For a region characterized by great diversity and a history of conflict, ASEAN has played a role in delivering relative peace...

The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) was created to address political and security issues. Over time, the economy has taken center stage and the ASEAN Economic Community (AEC) is going to be launched in 2015. The AEC is a milestone promoting ASEAN economic integration and...

Five years after the Global Financial Crisis, the economies of the United States (US) and the eurozone continue to struggle. How will Southeast Asian economies be affected should there be a further deterioration in conditions in the eurozone? In this paper, we present estimates using a Global...

This paper provides an evaluation of the impact of the ASEAN-China Free Trade Agreement (ACFTA) on industries in the Lao People's Democratic Republic (Lao PDR). In general, the paper finds that price competitiveness in the three industries under review falls substantially if tariffs are...

The 1997–1998 Asian financial crisis revealed the latent risks present in an increasingly integrated global economy and how virulent these risks can be when roused from dormancy. Given the inevitability of integration, the challenge is how to maximize its benefits while minimizing its costs....

This question is examined via a standard import specification augmented with differential and time-varying impacts of each component of aggregate demand: consumption, investment, government spending, and exports. Several important variables in explaining import demand such as credit conditions...

The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) is highly diverse. It is also divided. The most striking example is the development divide that separates ASEAN’s newer members of Cambodia, the Lao People’s Democratic Republic, Myanmar, and Viet Nam—the CLMV countries—from the...

This paper examines the impact of intra-Asia exchange rate volatility on intra-Asia trade in primary goods, intermediate goods, equipment goods, and consumption goods from 1980 to 2009. For Asia, the evidence shows that as intraregional exchange rate volatility increases, intraregional exports...