The paper shows that Asia's degree of financial integration, both with the world and within the region remains low by various measures. The paper also provides empirical evidence that greater financial integration can support economic rebalancing in statistically meaningful ways. The implication...

Cambodia is poised to join a new generation of Asian frontier economies transitioning from low-income to emerging-market. But the path to greater and more shared prosperity requires a solid foundation of sound macroeconomic policies, enabling new growth drivers, tackling a highly dollarized and...

Private sector investment has been a key source of growth in Malaysia over the last three decades, but after an unprecedented decline in the wake of the Asian crisis it has remained sluggish in recent years. Using aggregate and firm-level data, this paper aims to explain these trends and their...

We propose a new Financial Condition Index (FCI) for Asian economies based on two different methodologies: a VAR model and a Dynamic Factor Model. The paper shows that this index has predictive power in forecasting GDP growth and may be thus used as a leading indicator. Based on the FCI,...