This paper studies the value of external commitment to policy reforms in the case of WTO/GATT accessions. The accessions often entail reforms that go beyond narrowly defined trade liberalization, and have to overcome fierce resistance in the acceding countries, as reflected in protracted...

We study trade integration among 15 selected Asian and Oceanic economies using factor models. The principal component approach is employed to extract the common factor that drives trade integration from bilateral trade integration series. It is found that the estimated common trade integration...

Many recent studies have pointed out that firms with cash stocks or strong cash flow are financially resilient, enabling them to continue to invest and grow even when they experience economic shocks. In this paper we ask whether Asian firms were resilient to the recent financial crisis. Using...