The central question addressed by this study is whether countries with above-average governance grew faster than countries with below-average governance. Using the World Bank’s worldwide governance indicators to measure governance performance, it examines whether a country with governance...

In recent years, inequality has risen in the region alongside rapid economic growth. The widening income gap strengthens the case for a government response, and fiscal policy is one of the most suitable policy instruments to promote a more equitable society that provides opportunities for all....

In many countries, public agencies or private firms are gradually moving away from being exclusive providers of goods and services that traditionally were assigned to the state or markets, respectively. Instead, state agencies, both at the national and the local level, and private organizations,...

This paper investigates the financial determinants of research and development (R&D) investment in Asia, where innovation is naturally seen as the key driver of future (high) economic growth. We sample listed nonfinancial firms from eight economies in region (the People’s Republic of China;...

Financial conditions indexes (FCIs) are constructed for five Asian economies, namely, Hong Kong, China; Japan; the Republic of Korea; Malaysia; and Singapore, using a principal component analysis (PCA) methodology from Hatzius et al. (2010) and quarterly data. Various financial stress indicators are...

The relationship between governance and economic development is one of the most important areas of research in international development. Much of the previous literature has focused on whether better governance leads to higher levels of income. In this paper, we examine the relationship between...

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...

This paper aims to quantify the political risk effect and its different economic implications in normal and crisis situations through the proxy analysis of election and the sovereign bond spreads. Our study leads to three main findings. First, in normal economic situations, elections and...

In this paper, we analyze the determinants of corporate saving in the form of changes in the stock of cash for 11 Asian economies using firm-level data from the Oriana Database for the 2002–2011 period. We find some evidence that cash flow has a positive impact on the change in the stock of...

The underdeveloped service sector in Asia has the potential to become a new engine of economic growth for developing Asia, which has traditionally relied on export-oriented manufacturing to power its growth. The central objective of this paper is to empirically analyze the prospects for the...