While most observers concur that the time is not ripe for Asia to consider a common currency, there has been some discussion about the possible creation of an Asian Currency Unit (ACU). This paper examines the specific issue of the ACU which, in a general sense, is a weighted average of regional...

This book examines an important economic development in East Asia during the first decade of the 21st century. Whereas regional arrangements were, with the sole significant exception of ASEAN, conspicuously absent before 2000, they have proliferated since 2000 in both the monetary and trade...

This paper develops an Index of Trade Costs for ASEAN Member Countries, 1990-2007 based on the gap between cif and fob values of ASEAN exports to Australia. The cif/fob gap is a commonly used aggregate measure of trade costs, and Australia is a useful benchmark for ASEAN countries because it is...

In May 2013 the ASEAN+6 countries began to negotiate the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP). The objective of this paper is to analyze the feasibility of constructing such a region-wide agreement and to examine ways to multilateralize it. The paper first reviews free trade...

Serious efforts at economic integration among the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) members started only in 1992. Initial obstacles included the widespread pursuit of import substitution policies of industrialization, the small extent of intra-ASEAN trade, and the wide differences...

In May 2013 the ASEAN+6 countries began to negotiate the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP). The objective of this paper is to analyze the feasibility of constructing such a region-wide agreement and to examine ways to multilateralize it. The paper first reviews free trade...

Serious efforts at economic integration among the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) members started only in 1992. Initial obstacles included the widespread pursuit of import substitution policies of industrialization, the small extent of intra-ASEAN trade, and the wide differences...

Nepal’s lackluster economic performance during the post-conflict period (that is, after November 2006) has been driven by remittances from the export of labor services and the improved performance of the agricultural sector, which is still very much weather dependent. The authors make the...

This paper argues that the collective action in Asia by its regional organizations has historically suffered from a “capability–legitimacy gap†: a disjuncture between the capability (in terms of material resources) of major Asian powers to lead regional cooperation on the one...