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2013 Highlights

 

 

 

 

 
     

 

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December, 2013

 

 

 

 

 

 

Beijing Calculates Cross-Strait Relations: Waiting for the Melon to Drop, December 2013. Wen-Ti Sung, Asia Studies Visiting Fellow at the East-West Center in Washington, explains that "In Beijing, a favorable combination of institutional integration, political consolidation, and leadership expertise is enabling China's leaders to manage cross-strait relations with confidence and patience."

 

EWC

Rebalancing the US Army Towards Asia, December 2013. Paul Lushenko, Captain in the US Army, explains that "Unfortunately, poor messaging has obscured understanding of how the US Army intends to achieve its security goals in Asia which are primarily to avoid major armed conflict."

 

EWC

The Rise of China: What To Watch For, December 2013. Denny Roy, Senior Research Fellow at the East-West Center, explains that "Particularly in recent years Beijing has shown an inability or unwillingness to recognize that, in the eyes of some neighbors, Chinese 'defense' looks like Chinese assertiveness."

 

EWC

Energy Efficient Building Workshop and Training, December 2013.
The summary findings and proceedings of the above two workshops are complied under this report. The workshops have provided an opportunity for the range of public, private and academic sector stakeholders who are involved in developing an advanced building material infrastructure in the APEC region to exchange their views and experience on energy efficient building envelopes and window thermal performance testing and rating of their economies.

 

APEC

SMEs in the APEC Region, December 2013. APEC Policy Brief (Issue 8, Dec 2013)

 

APEC

Air Traffic Management Emissions Reduction, December 2013 is the result of a study to identify methods and estimate benefits associated with improvements to the air traffic flow in and around Bangkok and Kuala Lumpur, between the two cities, and in the neighboring region based on application of ATFM/CDM procedures and systems. The study included stakeholder discussions, site visits, and operational data analysis in order to identify appropriate ATFM/CDM approaches that will improve the efficiency of the focus area for the study.

 

APEC

Promoting Stable and Consistent Renewable Energy Supply by Utilizing Suitable Energy Storage Systems, December 2013.
Chapter 1: Development Status of the Energy Storage Industry
Chapter 2: Energy storage applications in the new energy field
Chapter 3: Advancing Wind Farm Development with the Use of Energy Storage
Chapter 4: Advancing the development of distributed generation and micro grids via the application of energy storage systems
Chapter 5: Impact of the national government on the practical economics of energy storage
Chapter 6: The active role of rational application of energy systems in industry

 

APEC

Symposium on "Promoting Human Security in APEC: Development of e-Health Systems as a Tool for Management in the Health Area of APEC Economies", Published 2013. This summary report gives an overview of the outcomes of the symposium held in Russia, August 2013. The purpose of the symposium on “Promoting Human Security in APEC: Development of e-health systems as a tool for management in the health area of APEC’s economies” was the exchange of best practices in the area of health care management and the development of recommendations to be used in APEC economies.

 

APEC

Report for Workshop on Application of Satellite Technologies for Emergencies Preparedness, Management and Response in Asia-Pacific Region, Published 2013. The report provides a summary report and compilation of the presentations of the workshop. The event was largely devoted to examining specific characteristics of satellite technologies application for different types of emergencies, discussion of international cooperation and mechanisms of fast remote sensing data delivery for EPMR and Crisis Management centers network development in Asia-Pacific Region.

 

APEC

Establishing Low Carbon Energy Indicators for Energy Strategy Study in APEC Low Carbon Town, November 2013. This report is a final result of the above project. Based on the project's objectives, it is a literature review of selected indicators systems of the similar kind were carried out, basic features of low carbon energy development priorities in developing APEC economies were identified, and a set of low carbon energy indicators system has been set up based on these findings.

 

APEC

Enhance Energy Utilization and Transformation Efficiency through Comprehensive Utilization of Coal, November 2013. This project aims to analyse the applicable scope of different technical route, and to explore the model of promotion in large scale to accelerate the clean and high-efficient utilization of coal in APEC.

 

APEC

Workshop IV Report on Large Marine Ecosystems, November 2013. The workshop objectives were to:
i. Report on the status and baseline assessment of the APEC Region’s Large Marine Ecosystems in
relation to climate change,
ii. Review best practices of ecosystem assessment and management in the APEC Region,
iii. Promote networking of APEC LMEs, and
iv. Identify the socioeconomic benefits of ecosystem-based management.

 

APEC

Broadband Network Development for Green Growth, November 2013. The main objectives of this study report are as follows: To analyze the status of broadband network development and the important role it plays in promoting green growth in APEC economies, main problems and challenges the economies are facing in promoting broadband network development for green growth; To provide references for developing economies, to promote technology and policy capacity building in developing economies in a view to bridge the digital divide and achieve balanced development in the region.

 

APEC

Enhancing Health Security - International campaign program to control antimicrobial resistance in the Asia-Pacific, November 2013. The key objectives of this APEC project were to develop campaign strategies to increase the awareness of AMR and to promote the appropriate use of antibiotics in the Asia-Pacific region, to develop and provide platform contents and materials of campaign program, and to roll out the international campaign program in APEC economies.

 

APEC

Distribution Transformer Survey: Estimate of Energy Savings Potential from Mandatory Efficiency Standards Volume 1 (International), November 2013.  Volume 1, the international work report presented experience analysis, strategic roadmaps of other APEC economies for distribution transformers on introducing or raising mandatory MEPS.

 

APEC

Distribution Transformer Survey: Estimate of Energy Savings Potential from Mandatory Efficiency Standards Volume 2 (China Work), November 2013. Volume 2, the China work report, carried out by the Zhong Biao Standard Technology Research Institute Co. Ltd (ZBSTRI) presents a quantitative and qualitative evaluation of the situation in the People’s Republic of China.

 

APEC

APEC-ASEAN Harmonization of Energy Efficiency Standards for Air Conditioners: Phase 1, November 2013. This project aims to develop the basis for harmonizing the testing method for room air-conditioners, starting from ASEAN members, which is then followed by the development of a roadmap for harmonizing the testing method for room air conditioners in APEC. this report gives recommendations on the way forward for a similar APEC-wide harmonization of testing standards.

 

APEC

APEC Workshop on Innovation Service Chain Based on Information Technology, November 2013 aims at building innovation service chain which will provide the means to deliver economic and technical co-operation, reduce economic disparities among APEC economies and create better quality and productive jobs.

 

APEC

Directory of Initiatives to Assist Small and Medium Enterprises Access Global Markets, October 2013. The aim of this directory is to provide a consolidated source of information for policy makers on the various initiatives used in APEC member economies to help small and medium enterprises become ready to access global markets.

 

APEC

Expanding Beyond Borders: The Yen and the Yuan, December 2013. The paper concludes by suggesting that in the next decade the PRC yuan will become Asia's leading currency due to the PRC's deep economic integration in the region, and that the Japanese yen's function as an international asset and store of value can be further enhanced if Tokyo's competitiveness as a leading international financial center is improved.

 

ADB

Trade in Value Added: An East Asian Perspective, December 2013. This paper aims to provide a non-technical explanation of the concept of trade in value added, with particular reference to East Asia. The trade in value added approach allows us to redefine the relationship between countries of origin and destination in international trade, and thereby addresses an important issue of measuring international trade in the face of growing production sharing among different countries.

 

ADB

China's Economic Statecraft: Turning Wealth into Power, November 2013. China today is using economic statecraft more frequently, more assertively, and in more diverse fashion than ever before. Yet fears of Chinese economic coercion should not be overdrawn. In many cases, China’s use of economic statecraft has been counterproductive. China’s domestic challenges and...

 

Lowy

Moving beyond Ambitions? Indonesia's Military Modernisation, November 2013. Indonesia’s impressive political and economic development in recent years has fuelled expectations that Australia’s much larger neighbour could join the ranks of the world’s ten largest economies as early as 2030. While there are good reasons to caution against such long-term predictions, there’s a high likelihood that Indonesia will become stronger relative to Australia. Consequently, Prime Minister Tony Abbott has made the relationship with Indonesia a top foreign policy priority...

 

ASPI

Pacific Economic Monitor, December 2013. Weak global growth is impacting the Pacific largely through lower commodity prices. Subdued global demand is keeping international commodity prices low—adversely affecting agriculture, mineral, and forestry export revenues of some Pacific economies...

 

ADB

The Economics of Climate Change in the Pacific, Published 2013. This study identifies the effects and quantifies the costs of these adverse outcomes to the Pacific island economies, with details provided for selected key sectors including agriculture, fisheries, tourism, coral reefs, and human health. It then presents policy recommendations and action steps for the countries to minimize or mitigate these impacts, particularly by mainstreaming climate change in their development plans, adopting forward-looking and risk-based approaches to climate change, and climate-proofing both their programs and infrastructure so that poverty eradication and sustainable development efforts can continue regardless of the vagaries of climate.

 

ADB

ASEAN Centrality and the ASEAN-US Economic Relationship, Published 2013. This advance copy is for circulation and discussion. A revised, final version of this issue of Policy Studies will be published in January 2014 and will include analysis of relevant developments at and after the WTO Bali Ministerial meeting, December 3-6, 2013.

 

EWC

Vietnam in ASEAN and ASEAN in Vietnam, November 2013. Le Dinh Tinh, Deputy Director General at the Institute for Foreign Policy and Strategic Studies, Diplomatic Academy of Vietnam, and Hoang Hai Long, B.A. Student at Depauw University, explain that "Vietnam recognizes that by working with ASEAN it can have a greater impact on regional and global events, rather than by just acting alone."

 

EWC

Constructing and Multilateralizing the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership: An Asian Perspective, December 2013. 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 agreement (FTA) developments, and discusses the characteristics and motives of FTAs in East Asia. It then analyzes the contents of major plurilateral FTAs in East Asia, that is ASEAN's five FTAs each with the People's Republic of China, Japan, the Republic of Korea, India, and Australia/New Zealand...

 

ADB

Disaster Risk Management at the National Level, November 2013. National governments are supposed to play a pivotal role in disaster risk management (DRM). This paper reviews trends and patterns in developing governance and institutions in DRM in the Asia and the Pacific region. The paper then derives recommendations on how to establish disaster risk governance for developing countries, including mainstreaming DRM into development plans and policies. A four-pronged approach is presented...

 

ADB

Disaster Risk Management at the Regional Level: The Case of Asia and the Pacific, November 2013. Hazards have no respect for the political boundaries of countries, so it is essential for disaster risk management (DRM) to be developed with a strong regional perspective. This paper describes a wide range of regional initiatives in Asia and the Pacific that rely on innovative solutions being adopted within a holistic approach and that link national governments, regional organizations, diverse sectors, and public and private bodies...

 

ADB

Energy Policy Options for Sustainable Development in Bangladesh, November 2013. Bangladesh today faces a different future than it did decades ago when relatively abundant natural gas seemed to be the key to prosperity. To support more evidence-based dialogue on energy development, allocation, and pricing reform, this study uses a computable general equilibrium model to evaluate major energy policy issues facing Bangladesh...

 

ADB

Directory of Initiatives to Assist Small and Medium Enterprises Access Global Markets, October 2013. The aim of this directory is to provide a consolidated source of information for policy makers on the various initiatives used in APEC member economies to help small and medium enterprises become ready to access global markets.

 

APEC

Training Course on the Application of Remote Sensing and GIS in Crop Production, Summary Report, November 2013. This report summarises the findings of the above training course which aimed to provide a platform for sharing information and technological expertise on the issues related to the application of geographic information system (GIS) and remote sensing technology in crop production among APEC economies and for around the globe.

 

APEC

Low Carbon Town and Physical Energy Storage, November 2013. The APEC project, Low Carbon Town and Physical Energy Storage, aims at promoting the technology combination of renewable energy and energy storage. The energy consumption of buildings will be reduced and the regional energy security in APEC regions will be enhanced. This report presents the findings of Low Carbon Town and Physical Energy Storage Project.

 

APEC

Emergency Response Travel Facilitation for Personnel, Goods and Equipment in Times of Crisis, Published 2013. The objective of this report is twofold: 1) to understand current policies and procedures affecting the cross-border movement of emergency personnel and disaster goods and equipment within APEC economies, and 2) to identify best practices that can be used to help formulate policy recommendations to effectively deal with the international movement of emergency responders and disaster goods and equipment.

 

APEC

APEC International Ship and Port Facility Security Code Good Practices Workshop, Summary Proceedings, November 2013. This report provides a summary of above the workshop. It aimed to identify and share good practices in port security oversight linked to implementing the ISPS Code by discussing the lessons learnt from APEC’s recently-ended Port Security Visit Program and other regional capacity building initiatives as well as opportunities to broaden the scope of the ISPS code’s application within port areas.

 

APEC

Roadmap for Development of Small Hydropower - APEC Workshop on Small Hydro and Renewable Grid Integration, September 2013 (Published November 2013). This roadmap is part of the "APEC Workshop on Small Hydro and Renewable Grid Integration". The objective of the Small Hydropower Plants (SHP) Road map development is to gather and consequently make available for Members of APEC, relevant energy, market and policy on SHP. The roadmap for the development of SHP in APEC economies probably can not attempt to be a complete guide to SHP development.

 

APEC

APEC Workshop on Small Hydro and Renewable Grid Integration, Final Report, September 2013 (Published November 2013). The workshop aimed to share experiences on the issues related to diversification of energy sources, sustainable development and green growth and suggest road map for addressing current grid integration problems and suggested future APEC projects.

 

APEC

Good Regulatory Practices for Conformity Assessment in APEC Member Economies, October 2013. The report summarizes member economies’ preferred approaches to and practices in conformity assessment and the laws governing such practices, and examines the application of international standards to conformity assessment, cooperation among member economies, and member economies incorporate good practices into assessment requirements. It also describes member economies’ mandatory assessment requirements for electrical installations, photovoltaic products, and medical devices/pacemakers. The report also offers observations as the basis for further improvement in conformity assessment approaches in member economies

 

APEC

Enhancing Supervision of Financial Institutions' Risk Appetite Frameworks, Published 2013. This report summarizes the above Training Workshop which was organised in Shanghai in May 2013 to enhance the capacity of supervisors of banks and other financial institutions from emerging economies within the APEC region to ensure the implementation of sound risk appetite frameworks in those institutions.

 

APEC

Trends in Trade Finance across the APEC Region, October 2013. Trade finance is critical for cross-border trade for at least two reasons: (1) it provides the necessary insurance against counterparty risk; and (2) it provides working capital, which is vital to the maintenance of a healthy cash flow especially given the long time lag in international trade between production of the goods and receipt of payment. This issues paper has been prepared to analyse the trends in trade finance since the 2008 Global Financial Crisis (GFC) and to assess the current situation...

 

APEC

Vulnerability to Expected Poverty in Afghanistan, 2013. This paper measures vulnerability to expected poverty (VEP) an ex-anti measure of well-being for Afghanistan using a single cross-section data. We measure VEP using household consumption expenditure during 2007/08 to predict probability of future consumption being lower than a specific probability threshold. Our results show that 66 per cent of Afghan population is vulnerable to poverty in near future compared to 42 per cent of the population who currently live under the poverty line...

 

ASARC

The Determinants of Household Level Fertility in India, 2013. Using NSS data for 1993-94 and 2004-05 this paper highlights the impact of growing incomes, social and household decisions of households, and regional and ethnic factors on patterns of household level fertility in India. These have helped determine the composition of India’s young (aged 9 to 34) today...

 

ASARC

Vulnerability and Responses to Risks in Rural India, 2013. Using ARIS/REDS data set for 2006 for rural India this paper models household vulnerability as expected utility and its components. We conclude, first, that between the years 1999 and 2006 household vulnerability is most explained by poverty and idiosyncratic components. Second, for risk coping strategy, households rely heavily on informal instrument such as their own saving, transfers or capital depletion...

 

ASARC

The Impact of a Large Rice Price Increase on Welfare and Poverty in Bangladesh, 2013. This paper studies the effect of a sharp rice price increase on welfare and poverty in Bangladesh. We employ household expenditure information to estimate the welfare loss induced by the price increase. Our findings suggest that we underestimate the proportionate welfare loss for the rice producing households and overestimate that of the households who do not produce rice...

 

ASARC

Welfare Schemes and Social Protection in India, 2013. This paper provides a broad overview of welfare schemes in India and their impact on social protection during a period of high economic growth. It summarizes India’s performance with respect to select economic and social indicators relative to select low and middle income countries in the Asia Pacific region. It further overviews trends in some key select economic and social indicators for India and discusses India’s attainment in Social Protection relative to an index of such protection provided by the Asian Development Bank...

 

ASARC

Indirect Tax Reform and Fiscal Federalism in India, 2013. This paper underscores the substantial spatial disparities across India and evaluates the case for putting together (various versions) of the Goods and Service Tax (GST) and also indicates the risks involved in the process. This paper argues that, on balance, there is a case for an appropriately constituted GST but that the federal transfer formula must be sensitive to any fallout from such a move...

 

ASARC

Budget Deficit and National Debt: Sharing India Experience, 2013. India suffered humiliations in terms of balance of payments crises in 1991 but since then it has weathered all crises, which have hit the world economies despite the fact that subsequent periods have seen even larger current account and fiscal deficits. It is in this context that an analysis of fiscal and debt problems of India is timely and assumes importance. The paper delves upon fiscal exuberance and debt management practices in India, the budgetary allocations, changing structure of the deficit and debt, and the sustainability...

 

ASARC

New Zealand Journal of Asian Studies, Volume 11 No. 1, June 2011  

NZJAS

New Zealand Journal of Asian Studies 2009-2010  

NZJAS

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

November, 2013

 

 

 

 

 

 

Financial Crisis as a Catalyst of Legal Reforms: The Case of Asia, November 2013. This paper discusses how financial crises in emerging Asia and Japan worked as catalysts for legal reforms. Findings show that six Asian countries pursued significant legal and judicial reforms following financial crises in 1997–1998, but indicators that measure the quality of legal institutions exhibit mixed results...

 

ADB

Mapping Crisis-Era Protectionism in the Asia and Pacific Region, November 2013. This paper provides an account of how governments in the Asia and Pacific region have resorted in recent years to discrimination against foreign commercial interests. As in previous systemic economic crises, policymakers altered the mix of discriminatory policies employed...

 

ADB

Myanmar-China-US: The Potential for Triangular Cooperation, November 2013. David I. Steinberg, Distinguished Professor of Asian Studies Emeritus, Georgetown University, explains that ”Those in China, the United States, or Myanmar who view the Sino-US relationship in Myanmar as a zero-sum game are wrong.”

 

EWC

North Korea and Mongolia: A New Partnership for Two Old Friends? November 2013. Charles Krusekopf, Executive Director of the American Center for Mongolian Studies, explains that "Political and cultural relations between Mongolia and North Korea have generally remained close since 1948, when Mongolia became only the second country in the world to recognize North Korea, after the Soviet Union."

 

EWC

Getting to Full Bloom in US-Malaysia Relations, November 2013. Prashanth Parameswaran, Ph.D Candidate in International Affairs at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, explains that "US diplomatic attention to Malaysia is only beginning to match the growing importance of the bilateral relationship."

 

EWC

China-ASEAN Relations: Consensus on Principles, Differences on Specifics, October 2013. Chaobing Qiu, Research Fellow at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS), explains that "The consensus on principles such as mutual trust, cooperation and mutual respect is highly valued by both sides, but is still not enough to resolve the specific differences concerning disputes in the South China Sea."

 

EWC

Azerbaijan and Georgia: Strategic Partnership for Stability in a Volatile Region, September 2013. Azerbaijan and Georgia are two neighboring countries of the South Caucasus and strategic allies in the region. The current de-jure map of the South Caucasus region includes three internationally recognized states: Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Georgia. These three countries not only share borders, but also a long history of cohabitation as well as many traditions. At the same time, the unresolved armed conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan is the most serious challenge for stability and prosperity in the region. Azerbaijan is the largest country of the South Caucasus in terms of territory and population, followed by Georgia and Armenia. There are also three other territories that claim independence from Georgia and Azerbaijan. These are Nagorno-Karabakh in Azerbaijan, and Abkhazia and South Ossetia in Georgia...

 

ISDP

Fixing Australia's Incredible Defence Policy, October 2013. Australia’s new government must make tough decisions in defence policy. Australia’s broad national interests and the challenging strategic environment in Indo-Pacific Asia make it essential to modernise the Australian Defence Force. The nation’s defence capabilities remain underfunded and its strategic edge in the region is eroding. The gap between the nation’s interests and capabilities is widening, and it is getting harder to meet the demands of the US alliance. Australia’s new government needs to restore focus and funding to defence.

 

Lowy

Syria: How the West Can Play a Weak Hand Better, September 2013. This Lowy Institute Analysis examines the trajectory of the Syrian conflict in the wake of the Russian and US agreement to eliminate Syria's chemical weapons. It argues that while that agreement, enshrined in Security Council Resolution 2118, may remove a pernicious class of weapons from the Syrian battlefield, it will do nothing to end the conflict or mitigate some of its other disastrous consequences...

 

Lowy

Monetary Authority of Singapore: Macroeconomic Review, Volume XII, Issue 2, October 2013 (Full Report, Presentation Slides for Briefing):  

MAS

FDI Technology Spillovers and Spatial Diffusion in the People's Republic of China, November 2013. This paper investigates the geographic extent of foreign direct investment (FDI) technology spillovers and diffusion in the People’s Republic of China (PRC). The empirical results show that FDI presence (measured as employment share) in a locality will generate negative and significant impacts on the productivity performance of domestic private firms in the same location. Nevertheless, these negative intra-regional spillovers are found to be locally bounded...

 

ADB

PRC Knowledge Brief: Housing the People, October 2013. Housing supply in the People’s Republic of China (PRC) has increased tremendously in recent years to meet demand, but affordability is increasingly an issue. A State Council document mandates the provision of 36 million new affordable homes under the 12th Five Year Plan (FYP) for 2011–2015. Home ownership in the PRC is very high compared to other countries. As of 2010, home ownership was almost universal. Living space increased nine-fold in urban areas and 4.5-fold in rural areas in the past 3 decades. Effectively, two-thirds of all housing was built after 1990. This rapid expansion in housing has been an important contributor to GDP growth...

 

ADB

The Future of the World Trade Organization, November 2013. The paper firstly identifies and assesses the key developments in the Doha Round that have contributed to the present stalemate. Secondly, it presents several options that the organization could consider for defining its future work program given the new realities of global economic engagement, especially the emergence of global production networks. Most importantly, the paper assesses the possibility of including new disciplines covering areas that can help the growth of these drivers of global economic integration. Such an initiative could include three sets of issue: trade facilitation measures, an equitable investment regime, and effective disciplines for curbing non-tariff barriers.

 

ADB

Developing the Service Sector as an Engine of Growth for Asia, Published 2013. The future of the sector depends on whether the expansion of services in Asia is driven by dynamic, open competition or by the inflexible protection of vested interests. If competition prevails, Asia can establish a robust, highly productive sector generating collateral benefits for other industries and providing services that power inclusive growth. Competition, in particular foreign competition, worked miracles for manufacturing in Asia as the region transformed itself into the factory of the world. It can work new miracles for the region’s service sectors and for the broader economy.

 

ADB

Working Together in Pursuit of Inclusive Business: Sharing the Latin American and Caribbean Experience with Asia and the Pacific, November 2013. This publication summarizes the Inter-American Development Bank's Opportunities for the Majority program and provides recommendations for ADB to learn from Latin America in the pursuit of inclusive business. It is part of the IDB–ADB cooperation on knowledge exchange between the two regional development banks in Latin America and the Caribbean and in Asia and the Pacific.

 

ADB

Guidebook on Public–Private Partnership in Hospital Management, Published 2013. This publication looks at hospital management as an important component of well-rounded health care systems. Through PPPs in hospital management, people will have increased access to effective, affordable, and compassionate health care services.

 

ADB

Social Protection Index Brief: Social Assistance Programs in Asia and the Pacific, October 2013. This policy brief examines the six major subcomponents of social assistance and draws out policy lessons based on comprehensive data for 35 countries in the region...

 

ADB

Supply Chains and Credit-Market Shocks: Some Implications for Emerging Markets, November 2013. First, for industries where specific investment in the input supplier-customer relationship is large, firms are more exposed to credit-market shocks. It is found that measures of global credit-market shocks are negatively associated with trade receivables, trade payables, and inventories, conditional on the level of contract intensity in the industries where firms operate. Second, firms in emerging markets are more vulnerable to credit-market shocks than are firms in developed countries...

 

ADB

Development of Capital Markets in Member Countries of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation, Published 2013. The level of integration and harmonization of South Asian capital markets is low. There are major barriers including exchange controls, ownership restrictions, and differences in regulatory standards and enforcement capacity. The proposals address some of these barriers and include measures to promote awareness, stimulate innovation, raise regulatory standards, and champion the value of integration...

 

ADB

Cold Calculations: Australia's Antarctic Challenges, October 2013. This Strategic Insights looks at the range of Australian objectives in Antarctica, the assumptions that underpin those goals, and the options open for us to best achieve our aims. It’s hoped that this report will inform those responsible for formulating and implementing our Antarctic policies...

 

ASPI

Keep Calm and Carry On: Reflections on the Anglosphere, October 2013. The Anglosphere—shorthand for the Anglo-American sphere of influence—established the concept and structure of the modern transnational community and remains salient in contemporary international relations. For Australia, the Anglosphere provides a framework for continued prosperity through strong trade and political favours between those within its fold...

 

ASPI

Japan-US Alliance Adapts to the Needs of the 21st Century, October 2013. Satoru Fuse, Political Correspondent with TV-Asahi in Tokyo, explains that "The SCC agreement tasks Japan with two roles: to reinforce its capability to defend its own sovereign territory, specifically the Senkaku Islands, and to reach out and assist Southeast Asian countries in building up their own defensive capabilities."

 

EWC

The ROK-US Alliance at Sixty: Vigorous, But Vigilance Required, October 2013. Sukjoon Yoon, Senior Research Fellow at the Korea Institute for Maritime Strategy, explains that "The ROK-US security and defense alliance has been an exemplary model of cooperation, but the world is changing."

 

EWC

Turkey's Evolving Strategic Balance with China, Japan and South Korea, October 2013. Selcuk Colakoglu, Visiting Research Fellow with the Near East South Asia Center for Strategic Studies at the National Defense University in Washington, D.C., explains that "While Turkey's relationship with Japan and South Korea will continue to develop, it is the economic relationship with China that will continue to the primary focus for Turkish policymakers."

 

EWC

Asian Economic Integration Monitor, October 2013. The Asian Economic Integration Monitor is a semiannual review of Asia’s regional economic cooperation and integration. It covers the 48 regional members of the Asian Development Bank. The October 2013 issue includes two theme chapters: i) Toward an ASEAN Economic Community– and Beyond; and ii) World Trade Facilitation Negotiations–Asian Perspectives.

 

ADB

Monetary and Fiscal Operations in the People's Republic of China: An Alternative View of the Options Available, October 2013. This paper undertakes a comparative and firm-level analysis of the impact of regional trade agreements (RTAs) in Indonesia, Malaysia and the Philippines. It finds that firm-heterogeneity matters in RTA use. Acquiring knowledge about RTAs, building technological capabilities, and membership of industrial clusters affect the likelihood of RTA use at firm-level. A lack of information about RTAs and the absence of RTAs with major trading partners explain non-use of RTAs. Key policy implications include the need to improve business support for RTAs, to conclude RTAs with major trading partners, and to create a database on preference use in RTAs.

 

ADB

Corporate Cash Holding in Asia, October 2013. This paper undertakes a comparative and firm-level analysis of the impact of regional trade agreements (RTAs) in Indonesia, Malaysia and the Philippines. It finds that firm-heterogeneity matters in RTA use. Acquiring knowledge about RTAs, building technological capabilities, and membership of industrial clusters affect the likelihood of RTA use at firm-level. A lack of information about RTAs and the absence of RTAs with major trading partners explain non-use of RTAs. Key policy implications include the need to improve business support for RTAs, to conclude RTAs with major trading partners, and to create a database on preference use in RTAs.

 

ADB

Regional Trade Agreements and Enterprises in Southeast Asia, October 2013. This paper undertakes a comparative and firm-level analysis of the impact of regional trade agreements (RTAs) in Indonesia, Malaysia and the Philippines. It finds that firm-heterogeneity matters in RTA use. Acquiring knowledge about RTAs, building technological capabilities, and membership of industrial clusters affect the likelihood of RTA use at firm-level. A lack of information about RTAs and the absence of RTAs with major trading partners explain non-use of RTAs. Key policy implications include the need to improve business support for RTAs, to conclude RTAs with major trading partners, and to create a database on preference use in RTAs.

 

ADB

Learning by Exporting: Evidence from India, August 2013. It examines whether productivity growth among Indian exporters is higher than that of non-exporters...

 

ADB

The Financial Role of East Asian Economies in Global Imbalances: An Econometric Assessment of Developments after the Global Financial Crisis August 2013. The objective of this paper is to empirically assess how global imbalances have evolved since the global financial crisis of 2008/9. It examines how the security investment positions of major East Asian economies in United States financial markets - equities, bonds, and bank lending - changed after the crisis.

 

ADB

What is Economic Corridor Development and What Can It Achieve in Asia's Subregions? August 2013. Economic corridors connect economic agents along a defined geography. They provide important connections between economic nodes or hubs that are usually centered in urban landscapes. They do not stand alone, as their role in regional economic development can be comprehended only in terms of the network effects that they induce...

 

ADB

Impact of Eurozone Financial Shocks on Southeast Asian Economies, August 2013. 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 Vector Autoregression model of the direct impacts in Southeast Asia of a further shock to the eurozone...

 

ADB

The Role of International Trade in Employment Growth in Micro- and Small Enterprises: Evidence from Developing Asia, August 2013. This paper examines the role of international trade in employment growth in micro-and small enterprises using a representative sample of manufacturing firms in six Southeast Asian countries. After controlling for firm and individual characteristics as well as country and sector dummies, participation in international trade plays a significant role in explaining this growth, boosting firm-level growth by 3% per year on average...

 

ADB

2013 Key APEC Documents. Key APEC Documents 2013 is the 20th in a series produced by the APEC Secretariat. The Key Documents’ publication provides a reference set of the key policy decisions and initiatives endorsed by APEC Leaders and Ministers each year. Collectively, these documents frame the policy directions for APEC’s annual work programs. This issue presents a compilation of the statements from each of the APEC Ministerial Meetings held during 2013 together with the APEC Economic Leaders’ Declaration from their recent meeting in Bali, Indonesia.

 

APEC

Independent Assessment of the APEC Transportation Working Group, July 2013.

 

APEC

Independent Assessment of the Experts Group on Illegal Logging and Associated Trade, May 2013.

 

APEC

Highlights of Journal of Global Buddhism, Volume 13, 2012  

JGB

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

October, 2013

 

 

 

 

 

 

The ASEAN Economic Community: Progress, Challenges, and Prospects, October 2013. The ASEAN Economic Community (AEC) involves liberalization and facilitation of trade in goods, services, and investment, as well as protection and promotion of investment. The paper outlines the AEC Blueprint actions and the time lines for completion. The authors find that by end-2011 only an implementation rate of 67.5% had been achieved. While tariff elimination is found to be largely on schedule, there are difficulties with the removal of non-tariff barriers as well as with the liberalization of services and investment regimes.

 

ADB

Plurilateral Agreements: A Viable Alternative to the World Trade Organization? October 2013. The paper looks at some issue-based plurilateral agreements—such as the Information Technology Agreement (ITA), the Financial Services and Basic Telecommunication Services Agreements, and the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA)—with the aim of pointing to their crucial role in resolving the stalemate at the WTO and the Doha Round and the accelerating proliferation of free trade agreements (FTAs). It also suggests possible areas where new plurilateral agreements—whether single or multiple issue-based—can be developed. The paper highlights the importance of plurilateral agreements as a mechanism complementary to the WTO and FTAs in enhancing the governance of the global trade system, and outlines conditions that need to be fulfilled to address the needs of developing countries.

 

ADB

Special Study on Sustainable Fisheries Management and International Trade in the Southeast Asia and Pacific Region, October 2013. This paper analyzes the current status of fisheries and aquaculture in Southeast Asia and international trade. Analysis concludes that a policy of sustainable management for both capture fisheries and aquaculture is of greatest importance, but such a policy has been neither planned nor implemented with a holistic and long-term perspective. Current policy reflects a short-term view and the immediate needs of each nation. Therefore, capacity building of human resources and organizations, including governments, is needed for the formulation of holistic national policies to seek long-term and fundamental remedies for the sustainable management of fisheries resources and intensified and extensive aquaculture.

 

ADB

Modern Currency Wars: The United States versus Japan, October 2013. In 2013, through massive quantitative easing by the Bank of Japan (BOJ), the yen depreciated about 25% against the US dollar, stoking fears of Japan bashing by the US. However, this sharp depreciation simply restored the purchasing power parity of the yen with the dollar. Since 2008, quantitative easing by the BOJ has been similar to that carried out by the US Federal Reserve, the Bank of England, and the European Central Bank. So the BOJ can only be faulted as a currency belligerent if there is further significant yen depreciation. Led by the US, now all mature industrial countries are addicted to near-zero interest liquidity traps in both the short and long terms. Such ultra-low interest rates are causing lasting damage to the countries' financial systems, and to those of emerging markets, which naturally have higher interest rates. But exiting the trap creates a risk of chaos in long-term bond markets and is proving surprisingly difficult....

 

ADB

Exchange Rate Policy and Regional Trade Agreements: A Case of Conflicted Interests? October 2013. The results highlight the conflicting interests of countries — to stabilize exchange rates or to keep the option of exchange rate depreciation in order to maintain competitiveness of domestic tradable producers. With deepening integration in East Asia, however, the desire for exchange rate stability will eventually outweigh the desire to maintain a protectionist tool...

 

ADB

Abenomics' Trade Spillover, October 2013. The paper assesses the impact on Japan's competitors from a marked fall in the value of yen. Competing exporters are likely hurt by a cheaper yen, except those relying heavily on Japanese parts and components for their exports. This paper formalizes this intuition and tests it against a data set covering more than 90% of world trade at the product level, between 2000 and 2011...

 

ADB

Invisible Trade Barriers: Trade Effects of US Antidumping Actions Against the People's Republic of China, October 2013. This paper empirically examines the trade restriction and diversion effects of United States (US) antidumping actions against imports from the People’s Republic of China (PRC). The results show that the antidumping measures raised the prices of imports from the PRC and reduced US imports from the PRC only in the short term. Overall, the evidence suggests that antidumping actions fail to protect US domestic industries but harm US consumers via higher import prices.

 

ADB

Energy Outlook for Asia and the Pacific, 2013. This report attempts to identify policy, social, infrastructure, and technology issues that must be addressed to meet the future energy needs of members of ADB in Asia and the Pacific. Two cases of the projected energy demand and supply up to 2035 for ADB members in Asia and the Pacific are presented:..

 

ADB

Economics of Climate Change in East Asia, Published 2013. This regional study includes the People's Republic of China, Japan, the Republic of Korea, and Mongolia and examines how strategies for adapting to climate change up to 2050 can be combined with measures to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in East Asia...

 

ADB

South Asia Conference on Environmental Justice, Published 2013. The recommendations from the conference led to the adoption of a 14-point Bhurban Declaration establishing "green benches" across Pakistan and calling for subregional collaboration for educated judiciaries, specialized courts, and cooperation to achieve environmental justice...

 

ADB

Indus Basin Floods: Mechanisms, Impacts, and Management, Published 2013. This report proposes a contemporary holistic approach, applying scientific assessments that take people, land, and water into account. It also includes planning and implementation realized through appropriate policies, enforceable laws, and effective institutions.

 

ADB

Hong Kong: High Frequency Macroeconomic Forecasts Current Quarter Model: 2013Q4, October 2013 revised the real GDP growth forecast for the whole year of 2013 to 3.4%. This growth is driven mainly by the mild improvement of the external sector and the robust internal demand...

 

HKU

2013 APEC Economic Policy Report: Executive Summary. This is an executive summary of the 2013 APEC Economic Policy Report which focuses on APEC’s work to enhance fiscal transparency and public accountability as part of APEC’s New Strategy for Structural Reform initiative.

 

APEC

Factsheet: 2013 APEC Economic Policy Report. This is a 2 page factsheet of the 2013 APEC Economic Policy Report which focuses on APEC’s work to enhance fiscal transparency and public accountability as part of APEC’s New Strategy for Structural Reform initiative.

 

APEC

2013 APEC Economic Policy Report. As part of APEC’s New Strategy for Structural Reform initiative, the 2013 APEC Economic Report focuses on APEC’s work to enhance fiscal transparency and public accountability. It includes individual member economies reports to provide valuable information on economies’ fiscal institutions and their key initiatives and challenges in promoting fiscal transparency and accountability.

 

APEC

2013 Senior Officials' Report on Economic and Technical Cooperation. The key focus of the SOM Steering Committee on ECOTECH in 2013 was on improving APEC’s ECOTECH work to ensure ECOTECH continue to play a critical role in accelerating Regional Economic Integration and in implementing the APEC Leaders' Growth Strategy.

 

APEC

Factsheet: 2013 APEC Senior Officials' Report on Economic and Technical Cooperation. This is a 2 page factsheet of the 2013 APEC Senior Officials' Report on Economic and Technical Cooperation.

 

APEC

2013 CTI Annual Report to Ministers. The CTI Annual Report to Ministers for 2013 outlines the Committee’s accomplishments and recommendations in the key priority areas of APEC’s Trade and Investment Liberalization and Facilitation agenda in support of APEC’s 2013 priorities under the theme of “Resilient Asia-Pacific, Engine of Global Growth”.

 

APEC

APEC in Charts 2013. APEC in Charts is a new initiative of the APEC Policy Support Unit. It provides a graphical overview of the APEC region’s economic, trade, investment and policy-related performance.

 

APEC

2013 ABAC Report to Leaders: Partnership, Resilience Bridges to Growth. The 2013 APEC Business Advisory Council (ABAC) Report to APEC Economic Leaders, contains recommendations by ABAC to the APEC Economic Leaders in Indonesia, October 2013.

 

APEC

2013 ANSSR Mid-Term Progress Report: Summary of Results. APEC’s New Strategy for Structural Reform (ANSSR) was adopted by Leaders at their Yokohama meeting in 2010. This report is a mid-term progress review, designed to facilitate knowledge exchange and information sharing by highlighting examples of successful structural reforms, as well as identifying common challenges that have arisen during the ANSSR implementation process.

 

APEC

APEC Economic Trends Analysis: Cautious Steps towards Recovery, October 2013. The October 2013 issue examines the economic performance of the APEC region in the first half of this year. There have been divergent trends seen in the region. Economic activity has strengthened in industrialized APEC economies while there has been weaker than expected GDP growth in some APEC emerging and developing economies. Some economies in APEC were also affected as investors reassessed the outlook for monetary policy in some large economies, with visible impacts on the bond, equity and currency markets...

 

APEC

Key Trends and Developments Relating to Trade and Investment Measures and Their Impact on the APEC Region, October 2013. This report was presented at the APEC Ministerial Meeting in Bali, Indonesia in October 2013. It highlights that as economic activity has recently gathered strength in advanced economies, it has begun to slow in many developing and emerging economies. Trade performance in the first half of 2013 was also weaker than expected as the strong growth in import demand from emerging economies wasn't enough to offset the weakened import demand in advanced economies...

 

APEC

Improving Connectivity in the Asia Pacific Region, September 2013. The main objectives of the study are to: (1) enhance APEC’s understanding of the current state of physical, institutional and people-to-people connectivity in the APEC region, including the initiatives of APEC and other international organizations in promoting connectivity; and (2) identify gaps and areas of opportunity in order to provide strategic recommendations towards the development of an APEC Framework on Connectivity...

 

APEC

Emergency Response Travel Facilitation for Personnel, Goods and Equipment in Times of Crisis: Summary, September 2013. The objective of this report is two-fold: 1) to understand current policies and procedures governing the cross-border movement of emergency personnel and disaster goods and equipment within APEC economies; and 2) to identify best practices that can be used to help formulate policy recommendations to effectively deal with the international movement of emergency responders, disaster goods and equipment.

 

APEC

Study Report on APEC Environmental Services-Related Technology Market, August 2013. The report aims to provide a comprehensive study on ES and ES- related technologies market, including relevant general concepts and links between ES and ES-related technology, etc.

 

APEC

The PLA and International Humanitarian Law: Achievements and Challenges, October 2013. As a branch of international law, the duty to implement international humanitarian law (IHL) lies mainly with the state. The government of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) has undertaken a number of legal and practical actions to fulfill its international obligations in this area. The practical measures include organizing and delegating the implementation of tasks to military authorities and academic institutions. The People’s Liberation Army (PLA) has a major role in the PRC’s aim of ensuring full compliance with this body of law, as well as ensuring that its provisions are fully respected, even in peacetime...

 

ISDP

China's Antidrug Policies in Southeast Asia's Golden Triangle, September 2013. Xiaobo Su, recent Asia Studies Visiting Fellow at the East-West Center in Washington, explains that “Since the 1980s, successive Chinese leaders have sought to address this nontraditional security challenge, and there have been a number of initiatives activated in China’s antidrug campaign with Yunnan province on the frontline.”

 

EWC

Patterns of Military Behavior in Myanmar's New Legislature , September 2013. Renaud Egreteau, Research Assistant Professor at the University of Hong Kong, explains that “All indications are that there is a long way to go before the Myanmar military fully returns to the barracks.”

 

EWC

US Investors Support the ASEAN Economic Community But Question the 2015 Deadline, September 2013. John Goyer, Senior Director for Southeast Asia at the US Chamber of Commerce, explains that "slightly over half of US companies surveyed said that their companies are preparing strategies based on ASEAN's plans to reduce and eliminate barriers to trade in goods, services, and investment among its member countries."

 

EWC

Judicious Ambition: International Policy Priorities for the New Australian Government, September 2013. The new Australian Government should approach the international challenges and opportunities with judicious ambition. It should restore focus and funding to defence policy, re-energise the G20, add substance to the Australia-China strategic dialogue, work with China in the Pacific Islands region and adopt a measured and sustainable approach to people-smuggling...

 

Lowy

Syria: How the West Can Play a Weak Hand Better, September 2013 examines the trajectory of the Syrian conflict in the wake of the Russian and US agreement to eliminate Syria's chemical weapons. It argues that while that agreement, enshrined in Security Council Resolution 2118, may remove a pernicious class of weapons from the Syrian battlefield, it will do nothing to end the conflict or mitigate some of its other disastrous consequences. The West needs, therefore, to build on this deal and forge new agreements to gain humanitarian access and protection for Syria's civilians, and to establish a durable ceasefire. This will mean accepting, for the moment at least, that Assad will remain in power. But Western policy on Syria needs to operate within the realm of the possible, rather than the preferable...

 

Lowy

Trends in a Tumultuous Region: Middle East after the Arab Awakening, September 2013. This paper, by Lydia Khalil, looks at the road to revolution, the polarised politics of Islamists vs secularists, and sectarianism’s grip in the region. The events in Egypt and Syria illustrate the difficulties faced by policymakers around the world—options for intervention are limited. However, the international community continues to look for ways to encourage stability. Australia's role is considered including its role on the United Nations Security Council, particularly when it comes to the Syrian crisis and dealing with Iran’s nuclear ambitions...

 

ASPI

Monetary Authority of Singapore: Survey of Professional Forecasters (September 2013)  

MAS

Asian Development Outlook 2013 UPDATE (Highlights, Full Report):  Governance and Public Service Delivery  

ADB

Asia Bond Monitor, September 2013. The quarter-on-quarter growth rate for emerging East Asia's local local currency bond market in 2Q13 was 1.7%, down from 2.9% growth in 1Q13, as the region's local currency bond market reached US$6.8 trillion in size. The slight decline in the quarterly growth rate reflected not only a drop in the growth rate for government bonds to 1.1% in 2Q13 from 1.9% in the previous quarter, but an even larger drop in the corporate sector’s growth rate to 2.9% from 4.7%...

 

ADB

Monetary Policy Frameworks in Asia: Experience, Lessons and Issues, September 2013. The paper finds that East Asian central banks have managed inflation and growth well over the past decade, but the difficulties faced by central banks of advanced countries in the aftermath of the GFC suggests that not all problems have been solved.

 

ADB

Schooling Supply and the Structure of Production: Evidence from US States 1950–1990, October 2013. This paper finds that over the period 1950–1990, states in the United States absorbed increases in the supply of schooling due to tighter compulsory schooling and child labor laws mostly through within-industry increases in the schooling intensity of production. Shifts in the industry composition toward more schooling-intensive industries played a less important role...

 

ADB

Deepening Economic Cooperation between India and Sri Lanka, Published 2013. This book analyzes the performance and impact of the India–Sri Lanka free trade agreement over the past decade and suggests the way forward. India became an important source of imports for Sri Lanka immediately after the implementation of the free trade agreement...

 

ADB

Aid for Trade: An Investment-Benefit Road Map from South Asia, Published 2013. This report lays out an applied framework for prioritizing potential trade-related interventions and investments according to the expected strength of their combined economic impacts. Along the way, and for the first time, the economic geography of northeastern South Asia has been comprehensively mapped. Computer-driven modeling provides a dynamic portrayal of the economic geography that is a resource for decision makers (and investors)...

 

ADB

Health in the Post-2015 Development Agenda for Asia and the Pacific, September 2013. The paper discusses the key health challenges in the post-2015 development agenda for Asia and the Pacific, a highly populated, diverse region of countries with different health needs and priorities. However, common to most countries are the emerging health challenges of an aging population...

 

ADB

Regional and Subregional Program Links: Mapping the links between ASEAN and the GMS, BIMP-EAGA, and IMT-GT, September 2013. TThis report presents an assessment of the links among ASEAN and the three subregional programs (Greater Mekong Subregion [GMS], Brunei Darussalam-Indonesia-Malaysia-Philippines East ASEAN Growth Area [BIMP-EAGA], Indonesia-Malaysia-Thailand Growth Triangle [IMT-GT], and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations [ASEAN]) and is the first study that explicitly maps and analyzes the strategic program and institutional links among the three subregional programs and ASEAN...

 

ADB

APEC at a Glance 2014, Published October 2013. The Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum was established in 1989 to capitalise on the growing interdependence of Asia-Pacific economies. This handy publication lists APEC's goals, modus operandi and member economies.

 

APEC

Guidebook on SME Business Continuity Planning, August 2013. This Guidebook is intended to help small and medium-sized enterprises (SME) introduce business continuity plan (BCP). It presents 10 easy steps that SME readers can follow to develop their own BCP. In each step, forms have been prepared to assist readers. You should fill in those forms to suit the needs of your company. When you finish all the forms, you will have a complete business continuity plan for your company.

 

APEC

The Limits of Sovereignty and Post-War Okinawan Migrants in Bolivia, August 2013. This paper examines the legal implications for Okinawan migrants of Article 3 of the San Francisco Peace Treaty (hereafter SFPT), signed between Japan and most of the Allied Powers in 1951. Particularly, it analyses the case of post-war Okinawan migrants in Bolivia, showing how the legal conditions in the Ryukyu Islands were extended to the Andean country...

 

APJ

Fukushima, Fuel Rods, and the Crisis of Divided and Distracted Governance, August 2013. Japan is more fluid than it has been in years. The end of Japan’s “nejire kokkai” (“divided Diet)” via Abe’s resounding win in the July 21 Upper House elections was hailed in many circles in Japan and internationally as heralding three years of stability in government. But perhaps this sense of stability has very weak foundations...

 

APJ

Abe's Nuclear Energy Policy and Japan's Future, August 2013. Abe was belatedly forced to state, “Rather than relying on Tokyo Electric, the government will take measures.” Two and a half years after the three meltdowns at Fukushima, Tepco has not come to grips with the problem of how to manage accumulations of contaminated water being used to cool the crippled reactors and the spread of that contamination to groundwater that flows through the plant site to the sea...

 

APJ

Water, Water Everywhere: Incentives and Options at Fukushima Daiichi and Beyond, August 2013. Japan’s ruined and radioactive reactor plant at Fukushima Daiichi has been an abiding source of concern among knowledgeable observers. There are a host of good reasons for this reemergence. As this Mainichi survey observes, it is now clear that several hundred tons of radiation-contaminated water is entering the ocean per day...

 

APJ

The Korean War and Sino-North Korean Friendship, August 2013. The relationship between China and North Korea is a subject that attracts much discussion and speculation in today’s policy circles and media. The history of Sino–North Korean friendship is typically traced to the time of the Korean War (1950–1953), although in North Korea it tends to go further back, to the colonial period...

 

APJ

Miyazaki Hayao's Kaze Tachinu (The Wind Rises), August 2013. Miyazaki Hayao‟s new film Kaze Tachinu (The Wind Rises) premiered on July 20 and is on pace to become one of the most successful, if not the most successful, Japanese films of 2013. Miyazaki tells the story of Horikoshi Jiro, the designer of the “Zero Fighter”, which was a terrifyingly effective weapon deployed against China, the United States, and its allies in the early war years...

 

APJ

In the Dark With Tepco: Fukushima's Legacy for Nuclear Power, August 2013. The sad saga of Fukushima, with its recurrent revelations of incompetence and obfuscation, carries on. Among the latest, as related in detail in this July 31 Reuters article, are radioactive releases into the sea, unexplained ventings of steam, and the lack of a credible plan to deal with a daily 400-tonne influx of groundwater...

 

APJ

Zen as a Cult of Death in the Wartime Writings of D.T. Suzuki, August 2013. The publication of Zen at War in 1997 and, to a lesser extent, Zen War Stories in 2003 sent shock waves through Zen Buddhist circles not only in Japan, but also in the U.S. and Europe. These books revealed that many leading Zen masters and scholars, some of whom became well known in the West in the postwar era, had been vehement if not fanatical supporters of Japanese militarism...

 

APJ

Medical Tourism in the Philippines: Market Profile, Benchmarking Exercise, and S.W.O.T. Analysis, September 2013

 

PIDS

Relative Price Effects on Decompositions of Change in Aggregate Labor Productivity, September 2013

 

PIDS

Feasibility of Mortgage-Backed Securitization for the Underserved Housing Market in the Philippines, September 2013

 

PIDS

Philippine Fisheries Trade with ASEAN: Chokepoints to AEC 2015, September 2013

 

PIDS

Opportunities for Making Health Financing and Services More Inclusive in the Philippines, August 2013

 

PIDS

Explaining the Large Disparities in Health in the Philippines, August 2013

 

PIDS

The Puzzle of Economic Growth and Stalled Health Improvement in the Philippines, August 2013

 

PIDS

Urgent: A Road Map for Agro-industrial Development in the Philippines, August 2013

 

PIDS

The ASEAN Economic Community, August 2013

 

PIDS

Buying or Leasing of Election Machines by COMELEC, August 2013

 

PIDS

After Five Years of Pantawid, What Next? August 2013

 

PIDS

Multisector Strategy in Addressing Noncommunicable Diseases in the Philippines, July 2013

 

PIDS

Trade Liberalization and Trade Performance in Asia: 1974-2008, April-June 2013

 

PIDS

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

September, 2013

 

 

 

 

 

 

Financial Health and Firm Productivity: Firm-level Evidence from Viet Nam, September 2013. This paper empirically investigates whether financial health shores up firm productivity. It presents productivity as another driving factor in translating financial development into real economic progress. The findings suggest that liquidity and access to external credit boosts firm productivity, with the latter particularly imperative for exporting and/or importing firms

 

ADB

Asia-Pacific Aspirations: Perspectives for a Post-2015 Development Agenda, Published 2013. This report, the eight in a series produced under a tripartite partnership involving ADB, the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP), and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), comes at a critical juncture when the international community needs one strong final push to achieve the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs)...

 

ADB

Thinking about Water Differently: Managing the Water–Food–Energy Nexus, Published 2013. This publication is the result of a scoping study initiated by the Asian Development Bank to better understand the issues associated with the water-food-energy nexus in Asia and the Pacific. It provides high-level guidance on the choices available to address the region's water security issues...

 

ADB

Managing Regional Public Goods for Health: Community-Based Dengue Vector Control, Published 2013. This report describes a promising, low-cost, year-round vector control measure that is feasible to implement, is acceptable and safe to the public, and, once established, has minimal recurring costs...

 

ADB

Australia.s Foreign and Defense Policies after the September 2013 Election: Howard 2.0? September 2013. Professor of International Relations at La Trobe University, Australia, explains that "Abbott has plainly signaled that he sees this government as a continuation of that which was voted out in 2007."

 

EWC

The Japan-US Alliance Is in Danger of Drifting Apart, September 2013. Akira Kato, Visiting Scholar at the East-West Center in Washington, explains that "The fact is that the alliance is not as close as many think and there are three core reasons why; namely, the incompatibility of values, a differing world view and alternative versions of history."

 

EWC

Korea's Creative Economy Agenda, September 2013. Sean Connell, Japan Studies Visiting Fellow at the East-West Center in Washington, explains that "Park has described the term 'creative economy' as creating new growth engines and jobs through 'the convergence of science and technology with industry, the fusion of culture and industry, and the blossoming of creativity in the very borders that were once permeated by barriers.'"

 

EWC

NGOs, Piracy and Maritime Crime in Southeast Asia, September 2013. Joon Num Mak, Independent Analyst based in Malaysia, writes that “The establishment of a regional forum where NGOs can meet to discuss a comprehensive strategy to end the problem of piracy and maritime crime in Southeast Asia over the long-term would be a very important development.”

 

EWC

Ethnic Policy in China: Is Reform Inevitable? Published 2013. Following significant interethnic violence beginning in 2008, Chinese intellectuals and policymakers are now engaged in unprecedented debate over the future direction of their country's ethnic policies. This study attempts to gauge current Chinese opinion on this once-secretive and still highly sensitive area of national policy...

 

EWC

Asian Development Review, Vol. 30, No. 2, 2013 (Full Report):   ADB

Strategic Options for Urbanization in the People's Republic of China: Key Findings, Published 2013. This report is based on a 2011–2012 policy study for the PRC’s forthcoming national urbanization plan that will set out urban development policies and guidelines over the coming decade. It examines the PRC’s urbanization challenges and suggests actions for improving the urban environment through changes in the design, financing, administration, and social integration of cities.

 

ADB

Overcoming Critical Constraints to Sustaining Productivity Growth in Key Commodities of Asia and the Pacific, September 2013. Two trends on yields have been observed for rice, wheat, and even edible oils in Asia. The deceleration of yield growth is one of these trends. The other relates to the differential yield increases across countries in the region. This study provides explanations for both trends and relates these to the exhaustion of the yield potential of current technology, emerging threats posed by climate change and other disturbances, varying levels of development across countries and hence the development of infrastructure, among others...

 

ADB

Food Prices and Population Health in Developing Countries: An Investigation of the Effects of the Food Crisis Using a Panel Analysis, September 2013. It finds that rising food prices have a significant and adverse effect on all three health indicators in developing countries. Furthermore, the impact of food prices is severer in the least developing countries although the effect is moderated in countries with a greater share of agriculture in gross domestic product.

 

ADB

International Trade and Risk Sharing in the Global Rice International Trade and Risk Sharing in the Global Rice Market: The Impact of Foreign and Domestic Supply Shocks, September 2013. In recent years, rising food prices have returned as a concern for policy makers especially in developing countries. In this context, this paper examines how supply shocks, both domestic and foreign, have mattered to imports and consumption in the global rice market over 1960–2010. Such an investigation is important in assessing the role of trade in compensating for domestic shocks...

 

ADB

Safety Nets and Food Programs in Asia: A Comparative Perspective, September 2013. Many countries adopted safety net programs to deal with the food crisis of 2008. However, such programs are often beset with targeting errors, inefficiencies, and fraud. Despite this, there is no systematic comparative analysis of safety nets. The objective of this paper is to identify generic issues germane to safety net design and their role in determining success. It examines the performance of safety net programs in Bangladesh, India, Indonesia, and the Philippines...

 

ADB

Examining the Determinants of Food Prices in Developing Asia, September 2013. The findings suggest Asian food markets are more integrated regionally than with the world market. The short-run movements of domestic food prices are accounted for largely by the country’s own shock. Taken together, our findings suggest that promoting food price stability would require efforts at the regional level as well as at the domestic level, reflecting the influence of region-specific factors. Extensions to the developing countries in other regions produce similar findings on the determination of food prices.

 

ADB

Poverty and Food Security in India, September 2013. This paper is an attempt to analyze the impact of two of India’s largest food security interventions—the Public Distribution System (PDS) and the Mid Day Meal Scheme (MDM)—on poverty outcomes and on nutritional intake. This paper offers a simple methodology to take into account the impact of food-based transfers by including the implicit transfers from these schemes along with generating consumption expenditure estimates consistent with the transfers...

 

ADB

Rice Trade and Price Volatility: Implications on ASEAN and Global Food Security, September 2013. This paper highlights the thinness of rice trade relative to wheat and maize, and the contrasting price volatility and tradability relations for wheat and maize, which display a positive correlation, and for rice, which show an inverse relation. The paper focuses on Southeast Asia, which hosts the world’s biggest rice exporters and rice importers...

 

ADB

Bilateral Trade and Food Security, September 2013. It analyzes the relationship between food security and trade, focusing on food importers’ exposure to sudden market failures from relying on a narrow range of international suppliers. They compute a bilateral import penetration index (BIPI), which gauges the degree to which a country depends on another for food imports...

 

ADB

Leveraging Service Sector Growth in the Philippines, September 2013. The Philippines is often referred to as a country from which export of services rather than manufactured goods is the principal engine for economic growth, as the share of the service sector in gross domestic product has exceeded that of the industry sector since the mid-1980s. Three major opportunities for leveraging service sector growth stands out...

 

ADB

The Information Technology and Business Process Outsourcing Industry: Diversity and Challenges in Asia, September 2013. Some countries and regions have been more successful than others in developing information technology-business process outsourcing (IT-BPO) services industries. India and the Philippines in particular have offered educated human resources at low cost, attractive fiscal incentives, and industrial parks although these factors alone do not explain the rapid growth of the industry there as other countries also had these strengths but failed to develop industries as rapidly...

 

ADB

Addressing Planthopper Threats to Asian Rice Farming and Food Security: Fixing Insecticide Misuse, August 2013. This paper emphasizes the threat of insecticide misuse not only to farmers but, more importantly, also to the sustainable development of rice farming and food security. Thus, it is important to urgently address this threat and to develop more sustainable approaches that will integrate policies, marketing, and technologies to reduce the vulnerability of intensive rice production to planthopper outbreaks...

 

ADB

Key Indicators for Asia and the Pacific 2013 (Highlights, Special Supplement and Full Report):
  • Part I: A Special Chapter on "Asia's Economic Transformation: Where to, How, and How Fast?"
  • Part II: Millennium Development Goals
  • Part III: Regional Trends and Tables

Key Indicators for Asia and the Pacific 2013 covers 48 economies: Afghanistan, Armenia, Australia, Azerbaijan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Brunei Darussalam, Cambodia, China, Cook Islands, Fiji Islands, Georgia, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Japan, Kazakhstan, Kiribati, Republic of Korea, Kyrgyz Republic, Lao, Malaysia, Maldives, Marshall Islands, Micronesia, Mongolia, Myanmar, Nauru, Nepal, New Zealand, Pakistan, Palau, Papua New Guinea, Philippines, Samoa, Singapore, Solomon Islands, Sri Lanka, Taipei, Tajikistan, Thailand, Timor-Leste, Tonga, Turkmenistan, Tuvalu, Uzbekistan, Vanuatu, and Viet Nam.

 

ADB

Empirical Determinants and Patterns of Research and Development Investment in Asia, August 2013. 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. Listed nonfinancial firms from eight economies in region (the People’s Republic of China; Hong Kong, China; India; Indonesia; the Republic of Korea; Malaysia; the Philippines; and Singapore) are sampled for the period 2002–2011 using the Oriana database...

 

ADB

Agriculture and Structural Transformation in Developing Asia: Review and Outlook, August 2013. Relative to other developing regions, developing Asia has experienced a slower decline in employment share in agriculture, compared to its output share; a rapid growth in labor and land productivity; and a shift from agricultural output from traditional to high-value products. The most successful Asian economies have pursued an agricultural development-led industrialization pathway. Nevertheless, agriculture remains the largest employer in many large Asian countries, hence future structural transformation must take into account agricultural transformation...

 

ADB

Housing and Housing Finance—A Review of the Links to Economic Development and Poverty Reduction, August 2013. The paper provides a review of the literature that links housing, housing finance, and economic development. The housing sector may support poverty reduction and inclusive growth in two general ways. First, housing construction contributes to economic output, creates employment, and generates a demand for materials and related services. Second, improved housing raises the standard of living of occupants. At the same time, housing purchases are costly for individuals, constituting the most valuable asset owned by most households and often requiring housing finance (mortgages) to allow for purchase...

 

ADB

Globalization, Labor Market Regulation, and Firm Behavior, August 2013. The paper analyzes the link between firm characteristics and labor market regulation in five Asian economies—Bangladesh, Indonesia, Pakistan, the Philippines, and Viet Nam. Labor market policies and labor standards do not only affects workers, but also influence firms’ investment and employment decisions. The empirical analysis uses information from enterprise surveys. Empirical results describe systematic differences in the perceived level of labor market regulation...

 

ADB

Building Development Effectiveness Post-2015: A Results-Based Approach, August 2013. The current debate about the post-2015 period has generated a wide range of ideas on what the new agenda should include, and how it should be implemented. This paper seeks to contribute to the discussion by putting forward a possible framework that is focused on accelerating achievement of development results while enhancing their sustainability and accountability...

 

ADB

Climate-Related Disasters in Asia and the Pacific, July 2013. Along with the scientific association between greenhouse gases and the changes in the climate, the findings in this paper suggest that there is a link between increasing natural disasters in Asia and the Pacific and man-made emissions of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere...

 

ADB

International Lessons for Road Safety in the People's Republic of China, June 2013. This paper has identified lessons from high income countries that have been successful in road safety that are relevant for the PRC and other low and medium income countries to draw upon and benchmark, in their efforts to reduce road traffic deaths and injuries...

 

ADB

Solid Waste Management in Nepal: Current Status and Policy Recommendations, Published 2013. Managing solid waste is one of the major challenges in urbanization. A survey conducted in all 58 municipalities of Nepal in 2012 found that the average municipal solid waste generation was 317 grams per capita per day. This translates into 1,435 tons per day or 524,000 tons per year of municipal solid waste generation in Nepal. Many of these technically and financially constrained municipalities are still practicing roadside waste pickup from open piles and open dumping, creating major health risks.

 

ADB

Agenda for Change: Strategic Choices for the Next Government, August 2013. The next government has a primary requirement to be well briefed on the challenges inherent in Australia’s strategic circumstances and the policy options available to it. ASPI is publishing this report to layout our strategic choices and to provide recommendations.

 

ASPI

Getting There - a Status Update for the 2000 Defence White Paper, August 2013. This paper, by Andrew Davies, reviews the 31 major capability announcements made back then. It suggests its probably a good time for the incoming Defence Minister to look back at the lessons of D2000's force structure plans before moving forward.

 

ASPI

APEC Study Center Consortium Conference 2013, Proceedings. The APEC Study Center Consortium Conference 2013 report was prepared by the APEC Study Center Consortium (ASCC). It presents the summary of the findings and a compilation of the presentations presented at the above ASCC conference.

 

APEC

Low Carbon Intelligent Operations for Textile Industry in APEC Economies-Project Midterm Report, August 2013. The project aimed to assist textile manufacturers in creating a low-carbon materials processing procedure according to the publicly available specification of carbon footprint verification (PAS 2050) in APEC economics.

 

APEC

APEC Building Codes, Regulations and Standards, August 2013. This study was developed for the purpose of understanding how APEC member economies utilized building codes to increase building performance, aligning with the “green” goals of resource conservation and waste reduction. Building codes historically have been important policy tools for managing the safety, security, health, environment, and economy of the building sector.

 

APEC

APEC Conference on Low Carbon Town and Physical Energy Storage, Proceedings, May 2013, (Published August 2013). This proceeding is based on the APEC Conference on Low-carbon Towns and Physical Energy Storage. More than 120 papers from all over the world are included in this proceeding, mainly about advanced technology about how to build and reach Low-carbon Town and new physical energy storage technology for energy conversation with phase change material.

 

APEC

Advancing Inclusive Growth through Social Protection Project Report, Published 2013. This project is aimed at better understanding how social protection systems could become more efficient, cost-effective, and sustainable. Economies participating in the seminars identified common challenges to implementing effective social protection and corresponding measures to strengthen these systems. These steps include effectively targeting those most in need of assistance, promoting the employment of beneficiaries, ensuring sustainable program financing, and developing accurate evaluations of program performance.

 

APEC

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

August, 2013

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Philippines' Security Cooperation with the United States and Japan, August 2013. Julio S. Amador III, Asia Studies Visiting Fellow at the East-West Center in Washington, writes that "One option for the Philippines to augment its defense capabilities is to provide access for US forces to its military bases with the possibility that other countries, especially Japan, could enjoy the same privilege."

 

EWC

Abe's Real Challenge is the Japanese Economy, August 2013. Hiroaki Kuwajima, Chief Financial Officer at Aoyama Shachu Corporation, explains that "The key issue is whether Prime Minister Abe understands the importance of economic recovery as the source of his legitimacy, ahead of his own goals which include constitutional reform."

 

EWC

High Hopes and New Realities for the Vietnam-US Relationship, August 2013. Hoang Anh Tuan, Director-General of the Institute for Foreign Policy and Strategic Studies at the Diplomatic Academy of Vietnam, explains that "Few can doubt after President Truong's visit that both the United States and Vietnam are looking to further build on the foundation of bilateral trust already in place between the two countries."

 

EWC

Rebalancing NGO Contributions to Public Health in Asia, July 2013. Yanzhong Huang, Senior Fellow for Global Health at the Council on Foreign Relations, explains that "In Asia, the capacity of NGOs to contribute to public health, both within individual countries and at the regional level, has steadily expanded."

 

EWC

Military Transformation with Chinese Characteristics in the New Century, July 2013. The development of the worldwide Revolution in Military Affairs provides China with a rare historical opportunity, but also with unprecedented challenges. Seizing the opportunity and accelerating the military transformation with Chinese characteristics is a prerequisite for China’s efforts to build a moderately prosperous society. After more than ten years of steady gradual reform, China’s national defense and army building has achieved a new historic level of development...

 

ISDP

Socio-Cultural Characteristics of Civil Society Formation in Kyrgyzstan, July 2013. The present research sets out to answer a number of questions: Why is a turn for the better in Kyrgyzstan so difficult despite a very clear understanding of the advantages of a democratic system? What are the reasons for the current structure of the country's socio-political relations? What motivates Kyrgyz society, unlike its “stable” neighbors, to assert the principles
of Western liberalism in the country, and why are the results of this
movement still so far from the desired ones? How does the “freedom-loving” spirit of the nomadic Kyrgyz people, who do not tolerate any kind of violence, coexist with the humility and submissiveness Kyrgyz society has shown under the present circumstances?

 

ISDP

An Asian Perspective on Global Financial Reforms, August 2013. Th The aftermath of the global financial crisis of 2007–08 underlined the importance of maintaining fiscal space and fiscal sustainability. Even though many Asian economies implemented fiscal stimulus policies during the crisis period, their fiscal conditions generally improved rapidly thereafter, and their overall government debt positions, aside from that of Japan, appear strong. Nonetheless, there are a number of reasons to believe that conditions in emerging Asian economies will not always be so supportive. The first objective of this paper is to identify long-term issues of fiscal sustainability risk for emerging Asian economies. The second objective is to recommend policies to reduce these risks to sustainability.

 

ADB

Long-term Issues for Fiscal Sustainability in Emerging Asia, August 2013. The aftermath of the global financial crisis of 2007–08 underlined the importance of maintaining fiscal space and fiscal sustainability. The first objective of this paper is to identify long-term issues of fiscal sustainability risk for emerging Asian economies. The second objective is to recommend policies to reduce these risks to sustainability.

 

ADB

Multilateralizing Asian Regionalism, August 2013. Motivated by the proliferation of free trade agreements (FTAs) in Asia over the last decade, this paper studies the challenges faced by the Asian "noodle bowl"—overlapping, multiple trade rules, regulations, and standards in Asia—in the process of regional and global trade integration...

 

ADB

ADB Perceptions Survey: Multinational Survey of Stakeholders 2012, August 2013. The 2012 perceptions survey measures stakeholders’ views on development issues in the region and seeks to understand how well ADB’s priorities and performance are aligned with its stakeholders’ expectations and perceptions, and whether these have changed since the 2009 survey was conducted. The survey results provide important insights about ADB’s performance in contributing to poverty reduction in the Asia and Pacific region under its Strategy 2020. The survey, the third of its kind since 2006, was carried out among 900 opinion leaders in 31 member countries, drawn from a broad cross section of stakeholders in government, media, civil society, academia, the private sector, and development partners.

 

ADB

Banking Crises and "Japanization": Origins and Implications, July 2013. Japan's "two lost decades" perhaps represent an extreme example of a weak recovery from a financial crisis, and are now referred to as "Japanization." More recently, widespread stagnation in advanced economies in the wake of the global financial crisis led to fears that Japanization might spread to other countries. This study examines the dimensions of Japanization—including low trend growth, debt deleveraging, deflation, and massive increases in government debt—and analyzes their possible causes—including inadequate macroeconomic policy responses, delayed banking sector restructuring, inadequate corporate investment, loss of industrial competitiveness, a slowdown in total factor productivity (TFP) growth due to excessive regulation and economic rigidities, and an aging society.

 

ADB

Determinants of Financial Stress in Emerging Market Economies, July 2013. The global financial crisis of 2008–2009 illustrates how financial turmoil in advanced economies could trigger severe financial stress in emerging markets. Previous studies dealing with financial crises and contagion show the linkages through which financial stress are transmitted from advanced to emerging markets. This paper extends the existing literature on the use of financial stress index (FSI) in understanding the channels of financial transmission in emerging market economies. Using FSI of 25 emerging markets, the panel regression estimates show that not only advanced economies FSI, but also regional and non-regional emerging market FSIs significantly increase domestic financial stress...

 

ADB

Determinants of Urbanization, July 2013. In light of the United Nations' (UN) latest urbanization projections, particularly with respect to India and the People's Republic of China, a good understanding is needed of what drives aggregate urbanization trends. Yet, previous literature has largely neglected the issue in favor of studying urban concentration. Taking advantage of the latest UN World Urbanization Prospects, authors use an instrumental variables approach to identify and analyze key urbanization determinants. They estimate the impact of gross domestic product (GDP) growth on urbanization to be large and positive. In answer to Henderson's (2003) finding that urbanization does not seem to cause growth, they argue that the direction of causality runs from growth to urbanization...

 

ADB

What is Economic Corridor Development and What Can It Achieve in Asia's Subregions? July 2013. What economic corridors can achieve for regional economic integration depends first on what characteristics the specific existing economic networks in which the economic corridors are embedded personify, and second on which characteristics corridor development are intended to introduce or strengthen. Corridor characteristics interact dynamically to create patterns of regional economic development...

 

ADB

The People's Republic of China's Financial Policy and Regional Cooperation in the Midst of Global Headwinds, June 2013. Although growth deceleration in the People’s Republic of China (PRC) is inevitable, if the country’s new direction of financial policy (on exchange rate, capital flows, banking, capital market) can be achieved, it will be good not only for the country but also for the
rest of Asia. This is consistent with the increased degree of Asia’s integration and interdependence. But given the nature of financial contagion and spillovers across countries and asset classes, the financial headwinds from global crisis may require regional cooperation in safety nets provision, as the domestic policy in the PRC and other Asian countries is likely insufficient...

 

ADB

Climate Risks in the Mekong Delta: Ca Mau and Kien Giang Provinces of Viet Nam, Published 2013. The study focuses on vulnerability assessment of two provinces in the Mekong Delta region: Ca Mau and Kien Giang. Using climate change modeling, socioeconomic data, geographic information system analysis, and expert opinion, the study identifies future climate conditions and assesses the effects of future climate scenarios on the natural, social, and economic systems of each district of Ca Mau and Kien Giang provinces...

 

ADB

Non-Strategic Nuclear Weapons: The Next Step in Multilateral Arms Control, August 2013. This paper by Crispin Rovere and Kalman A Robertson addresses the many barriers to including tactical nuclear weapons in disarmament talks. It considers the difficulty of bringing other emerging powers such as China into the nuclear arms control equation...

 

ASPI

Australia as a Southern Hemisphere Power, July 2013. With attention focused on our relations with Asia, analysts have overlooked a significant strategic shift in recent years: Australia's emergence as a major 'soft power' across the Southern Hemisphere, from sub-Saharan Africa to South America, as well as in Antarctica and the Southwest Pacific...

 

ASPI

Securing the South Pacific: Making the Most of Australia's Renewed Regional Focus, July 2013. A decade after the invasion of Iraq, the 10-year-anniversary of the Regional Assistance Mission to Solomon Islands (RAMSI) later this month will mark an equally significant juncture in Australia’s strategic policy...

 

ASPI

Vietnam's Strategic Trajectory: From Internal Development to External Engagement, June 2012. This paper by Le Hong Hiep analyses Vietnam’s strategic trajectory over the past two decades, with an emphasis on its relations with China and the US, its policies on the South China Sea dispute, and the implications for regional players...

 

ASPI

India's Rise as an Asia-Pacific Power: Rhetoric and Reality, May 2012. India’s emergence as an Asian power—and eventually perhaps as an Asia–Pacific power—has wide implications for the region and consequently for Australia. This paper, authored by Dr Sandy Gordon, considers those implications as they relate to three closely related areas...

 

ASPI

Abe, Big Data and Bad Dreams: Japan's ICT Future? July 2013. This short article argues that Abe would be well advised to follow the advice of a succession of recent white papers and reports from within his own party and government, and focus on the enabling role of information and computer technology (ICT) in energy, health and a range of other services and markets...

 

APJ

US Government Protection of Al-Qaeda Terrorists and the US-Saudi Black Hole, July 2013. For almost two centuries American government, though always imperfect, was also a model for the world of limited government, having evolved a system of restraints on executive power through its constitutional arrangement of checks and balances...

 

APJ

Japan's Democracy at Risk - The LDP's Ten Most Dangerous Proposals for Constitutional Change, July 2013. Is it time to bring Japan’s postwar experiment in liberal democracy to an end? Prime Minister Abe Shinzo and his followers seem to think so. In April 2012, the LDP published a clear blueprint for constitutional revision that would go a long way toward achieving this goal...

 

APJ

The Roadmap for Fukushima Daiichi and the Sacrifice of Japan's Clean-up Workers, July 2013. During his June 2013 visit to Poland, Prime Minister Abe Shinzo highlighted the crisis management of the post-3.11 Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant as an argument for the sales and promotion of Japanese nuclear technology. A few weeks before, the French company Areva mobilized to promote cooperation with Japan Nuclear Fuel Ltd, Atox and Hitachi-GE during French President François Hollande‟s visit to Japan...

 

APJ

The Re-Branding of Abe Nationalism: Global Perspectives on Japan, July 2013. In 2010, the Australian Broadcasting Company (ABC) launched a highly successful TV show called The Gruen Transfer. The title refers to the disorienting psychological effects produced on consumers by the architecture of shopping malls, whose dazzle and noise are deliberately designed to mesmerize: on entering, “our eyes glaze over, our jaws slacken... we forget what we came for and become impulse buyers”...

 

APJ

Green Shoot: Abenomics and the 3rd Arrow, July 2013. This article describes the impressive, resilience-targeted greening of Japan, evident in nationwide deployments of renewable energy, radical efficiency, and other core aspects of sustainability. These developments are already underway, and include public- and private-sector actors as well as community groups. The greening also has promising stamina due to being increasingly deeply inscribed in the fiscal, regulatory and other mechanisms of a rapidly emergent industrial policy...

 

APJ

'Sweetening' the Pentagon's Deal in the Marianas: From Guam to Pagan, July 2013. In his book, Living in the Number One Country: Reflections of a Critic on American Empire, Herbert Schiller observes that „definitional control‟ serves “to bulwark, or at least minimize, threats to the prevailing order.” In the context of contemporary Guam, control over concepts of patriotism toward the United States have hardly needed any coercion from the top of the political order as gratitude toward the U.S. military for ending the brutal wartime Japanese occupation of Guam, decades ago, has largely remained fixed in the memory of the indigenous Chamorro people...

 

APJ

Training Women for Disasters: Gender, Crisis Management (Kiki Kanri) and Post-3.11 Nationalism in Japan, July 2013. On September 2, 2011, Takarajimasha, a publisher known for its popular magazines, printed an oversized PR piece in the leading national newspapers in Japan. Splashed across the pages of the Asahi, Yomiuri, Mainichi, Sankei, Nihon Keizai, and NikkanGendai was the 1945 black-and-white photograph of General Douglas MacArthur, the Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers, emerging from his plane, Bataan, at Atsugi Airport outside Tokyo to commence his reign as head of the occupation forces in Japan...

 

APJ

Cosmetic Surgery and Embodying the Moral Self in South Korean Popular Makeover Culture, June 2013. You only have to spend a day in Seoul to realize that appearances do matter in contemporary South Korean society. Advertisements for various cosmetic surgeries are conspicuous everywhere—from taxis to public transport and underground stations, all evidence that the industry is booming...

 

APJ

Washington's Battle Over Syrian Foreign Policy: Will Hawks Or Doves Prevail? June 2013. Like Putin‘s policy in Russia, Obama‘s Syrian policy is being tugged strenuously in Washington, both by hawks and by doves. On June 13, Obama handed two limited but ominous victories to the hawks: a finding of fact that the troops of Syria‘s president Bashar al-Assad "have used chemical weapons [i.e. sarin] against rebel forces," and a consequent decision to "begin supplying the rebels for the first time with small arms and ammunition"...

 

APJ

Renewable Energy vs. Nuclear Power: Taiwan's energy future in light of Chinese, German and Japanese experience since 3.11, June 2013. This article reviews the current debate in Taiwan over the future of nuclear power in the country's energy mix. Rather than debate a pro- or anti-nuclear stance, the authors develop the argument that Taiwan has more to gain in promoting renewable energy industries than in sticking with the nuclear option, both in terms of energy security and of building export platforms for tomorrow...

 

APJ

Abenomics Needs a Reboot Rather than Nuclear Restarts, June 2013. A June 2 article in Bloomberg by the deservedly respected University of California at San Diego Professor of Japanese Business, Ulrike Schaede, makes the argument that Abenomics requires nuclear restarts in order to work...

 

APJ

Learning to Love NGOs: The Growing Role of Civil Society in Asian Security, July 2013. James Gannon, Executive Director of the Japan Center for International Exchange (JCIE/USA), explains that "a new Japan Center for International Exchange (JCIE) study suggests that governments and regional institutions in Asia are failing to take full advantage of the potential of NGOs."

 

EWC

Social Media's Growing Influence on Cambodian Politics, July 2013. Sophat Soeung, Research Fellow with the Cambodian Institute for Cooperation and Peace, explains that "Irrespective of the upcoming election results, social media has created a nascent and more pluralistic online political environment where Cambodians exchange different political viewpoints freely."

 

EWC

The Expanding Indo-Japanese Partnership, July 2013. K.V. Kesavan, Distinguished Fellow at the Observer Research Foundation, New Delhi, and Public Policy Scholar at the Woodrow Wilson Center, writes that "The May 2013 Joint Statement signed by the two leaders refers to the elaborate institutional framework the two countries have built together for conducting dialogues and consultations covering a wide range of political and economic subjects, including shared security concerns."

 

EWC

Strategic Implications of TPP: Answering the Critics, July 2013. Ellen Frost, Adjunct Senior Fellow at the East-West Center in Washington, argues that "Far from thwarting Asian regionalism, TPP merely adds a new overlay. It gives ASEAN an additional incentive to achieve its goal of an ASEAN Economic Community by 2015. It has also set a major new pan-Asian grouping in motion."

 

EWC

US and Japanese National Security Regulation on Foreign Direct Investment, July 2013. Rikako Watai, Japan Studies Visiting Fellow at the East-West Center in Washington, explains that "The critical issue is how to balance the legitimate demands of national security with free trade and FDI, but citing opaque national security concerns for justifying protectionist measures clearly obstructs the GATT-WTO premise of free trade."

 

EWC

Micronesians on the Move: Eastward and Upward Bound, Published 2013. Is rising emigration proof of a Pacific Island nation’s failure to fulfill its economic promise and provide the jobs that its citizens seek in a modernized society? Or is it a legitimate alternative development strategy that depends on the export of surplus labor in lieu of the more conventional methods recommended by donor nations and international financial institutions? In this report, Francis X. Hezel, SJ, sheds light on these questions by reviewing the 30-year history of migration from one Pacific Island nation, the Federated States of Micronesia (FSM) and examining the current status of its migrants...

 

EWC

Global Supply Chain Operation in the APEC Region: Case Study of the Electrical and Electronics Industry, July 2013. This study aims to provide a detailed understanding of current electrical and electronics (E&E) industry supply chain operations, strategies, and challenges, and suggest approaches APEC might adopt to make these supply chains and others more efficient and better contribute to economic integration in the region.

 

APEC

APEC's Ease of Doing Business - Interim Assessment 2009-2012, July 2013. The report assesses the progress made by APEC in the priority areas included in the Ease of Doing Business (EoDB) initiative: 1) Starting a Business; 2) Getting Credit; 3) Enforcing Contracts; 4) Trading Across Borders; and 5) Dealing with Construction Permits. Based on the World Bank’s Doing Business database, APEC’s collective progress in the EoDB initiative was equal to 11.5 percent between 2009 and 2012, exceeding the 2012 pro rata improvement target of 10 percent...

 

APEC

APEC Energy Overview 2012, Published July 2013 (Full Report) covering Australia, Brunei Darussalam, Canada, Chile, China, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Japan, Korea, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, Peru, Philippines, Russia, Singapore, Chinese Taipei, Thailand, United States and Viet Nam.

 

APEC

Drivers of Regulatory Reform in Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, July 2013.

 

APEC

APEC Workshop on Best Practices on Financing Renewable Energy - Summary Report and Presentations, June 2013. The Workshop was targeted to analyze the current situation, statistics and experiences with financing renewable energy in the APEC region. This report provides the summary report and some presentations done at the workshop.

 

APEC

Independent Assessment of the Energy Working Group, May 2013.

 

APEC

Independent Assessment of the Counter Terrorism Task Force, May 2013.

 

APEC

Independent Assessment of the Experts Group on Illegal Logging and Associated Trade, May 2013.

 

APEC

Effect on Accommodating Renewable Energy Penetration in the Smart Grid, April 2013. Study of the paper covers three sub-subjects: firstly the study on the feasibility and benefit analysis of improving RES consumption by demand response are presented; then business operation mode and policy mechanism of demand response are designed in detail; finally the pilot implementations project mode of demand response are explained.

 

APEC

Real Estate Valuation, Current Account, and Credit Growth Patterns Before and After the 2008 - 2009 Crisis, July 2013. This paper explores the stability of the key conditioning variables accounting for real estate valuation before and after the crisis of 2008–2009, in a panel of 36 countries, for the period of 2005:I–2012:IV, recognizing the incidence of global financial crisis. Our paper validates the robustness of the association between the real estate valuation of lagged current account patterns, both before and after the crisis. The results are supportive of both current account and credit growth channels, with the animal-spirits and momentum channels playing the most important role in the boom and bust of real estate valuation.

 

ADB

Gender Equality and Food Security - Women’s Empowerment as a Tool against Hunger, Published 2013. There is a strong relationship between gender-based discrimination and the different channels through which households and individuals access food—through own-production, access to waged employment, or social protection. The report shows that while equality of treatment between women and men and food security are mutually supportive, gender equality remains an elusive goal in many parts of Asia and the Pacific...

 

ADB

Development Effectiveness Report 2012: Private Sector Operations, Published 2013. This fourth annual report on the development effectiveness of ADB’s private sector operations reviews how the Private Sector Operations Department has contributed to promoting ADB’s development effectiveness agenda. The report features the direct and indirect impact of private sector assistance. It considers the value added of this assistance, highlighting performance trends and identifying actions required to improve results.

 

ADB

Hong Kong: High Frequency Macroeconomic Forecasts Current Quarter Model: 2013Q3, July 2013 lowers the forecast of annual growth of real GDP slightly to lie between 3.3% and 4.1% this year. This revision reflects the recent slowdown in the China’s economy, and
the slower-than-expected recovery in the world economy...

 

HKU

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

July, 2013

 

 

 

 

 

 

Monetary Authority of Singapore: Survey of Professional Forecasters (March 2013, June 2013)  

MAS

Thematic Inspection of Residential Property Loans Business, June 2013  

MAS

Monetary Policy Operations in Singapore, March 2013  

MAS

Asian Development Outlook Supplement, July 2013. Although advanced economies have largely met expectations so far in 2013, developing Asia has not achieved the momentum envisaged in the Asian Development Outlook. This Supplement trims 0.3 percentage points from the region’s growth forecasts, to 6.3% in 2013 and 6.4% in 2014...

 

ADB

Negotiations for the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement: Evaluation and Implications for East Asian Regionalism, July 2013. The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) agreement seems to have reached a crossroads: it could either be a building block toward achieving economic integration in Asia and the Pacific, or trigger the formation of two large trade blocs which will work independently of one another. When the Government of Japan announced its participation in the TPP negotiations in March 2013, the partnership began to attract greater interest from other East Asian countries. This paper analyzes the progress and major issues regarding the current TPP negotiations which are being led by the United States, and draws implications for East Asian economic integration.

 

ADB

Development Imperatives for the Asian Century, July 2013. Evidence-based economic policies—pragmatic policies that work—played a major role in Asia’s success in raising its living standards in the last half century. However, growth prospects are now threatened by rising income inequality and environmental degradation if Asia continues on its established growth path. Evidence strongly argues for Asia to broaden its development priorities into a triple bottom line: that is, a focus on growth, social inclusion, and environmental sustainability...

 

ADB

Features, Restrictions, and Policy Recommendations in the Service Sector of the People's Republic of China, July 2013. The development of the service sector in the People’s Republic of China has not kept pace with the country’s overall economic development. The share of employment in services is still lagging behind that of output and is also below the international norm. Moving from traditional services to modern business services has been the focus in recent decades, but the current structure is still dominated by low-end, traditional industries...

 

ADB

Intellectual Property Rights, Quality of Institutions, and Foreign Direct Investment into Developing Asia, July 2013. Developing Asian countries are strengthening their intellectual property rights regime as they themselves become producers of intellectual property. At the same time, developing Asia has attracted large amounts of foreign direct investment and this trend is expected to continue in light of the region’s strong growth prospects. In this paper, the relationship between intellectual property rights and foreign direct investment in developing Asia is explored...

 

ADB

A Turning Point for the Service Sector in Thailand, June 2013. Although Thailand’s service sector accounts for almost half of the national income and has a major stake in national employment, its contribution to the growth of the gross domestic product (GDP) fluctuates. Moreover, the share of the service sector in GDP is decreasing while many developed countries maintain a positive association between the shares of the sector in output and per capita income. This paper investigates this relationship by examining the gross provincial product of 76 provinces to test the hypothesis that the service sector is a growth engine in the Thai economy...

 

ADB

The Lao Economy: Capitalizing on Natural Resource Exports, January 2013. Trade and investment reforms in the Lao People’s Democratic Republic (Lao PDR) since the mid-1980s have boosted natural resource-based exports, underpinning recent economic growth. A high proportion of the proceeds from these exports accrue directly to the government. Over the 8 years preceding 2011, total government revenue increased from 11% to over 19% of gross domestic product, due almost entirely to revenues derived from mining and hydropower. The effect on the Lao people depends on how the government uses these revenues. This paper examines how the Lao PDR’s export-led growth can be channeled into directions that deliver the greatest benefit to the Lao people.

 

ADB

New Contributor: The Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI), content up in several stages.

 

ASPI

Terms of Engagement: Australia's Regional Defence Diplomacy, July 2013. This major study of Australian defence engagement is authored by Sam Bateman, Anthony Bergin and Hayley Channer. Australia is in the process of pivoting back to our own region and looking for new strategies for Defence re-engagement. But the Defence Cooperation Program hasn’t been scrutinised in any dep...

 

ASPI

Something New under the Rising Sun: Expanding Australia–Japan Defence Cooperation, June 2013. A number of recent policy documents signal the Australian Government’s intent to deepen defence engagement in the Asia–Pacific. This paper considers current defence relations between Australia and Japan and looks at reasons and opportunities for increased engagement and cooperation, including in the area...

 

ASPI

Australia and the Non-Proliferation and Disarmament Initiative: Difficult Times for Disarmament Diplomacy, May 2013. Australia recognises the critical role that the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons plays in preventing uncontrolled proliferation and promoting disarmament, and upholding the treaty has long been a core foreign policy goal. However Australia's disarmament diplomacy has hit a difficult patch. This pa...

 

ASPI

China's Response to the US in Contemporary Asia, April 2013. The paper evaluates official Chinese commentary and media coverage on US activity in Asia from November 2011 to January 2013. Understanding the nuances of China’s differentiated response from the time of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s 2011 ‘America’s Pacific Century’ essay in For...

 

ASPI

Strategic Interests and Australian Grand Strategy, February 2013. The newly-released National Security Strategy provides good coverage of broad security issues, but could have given a more expansive worldview. Previous Defence White Papers have shown our approach to national strategic interests has been narrow and reactive rather than broad and proactive. The authors suggest there...

 

ASPI

Making Waves: Australian Ocean Development Assistance, September 2012. Australia has a vital national interest in the management of its adjacent oceans and seas. This paper argues for ocean development to be a key strategic goal of our increased aid investments. In particular, it recommends that AusAID fund key features of the follow-on to Australia's successful Defence ...

 

ASPI

Australian Defence Almanac, authored by Raspal Khosa, is a unique publication that brings together a wealth of information across the full-range of Defence activity in a single, easy-to-use reference source. It is an up-to-date, fact-filled resource that places otherwise difficult to find Defence information at the reader’s fingertips and presents it in a transparent, highly readable form.  

ASPI

Facing the Dragon: China Policy in a New Era, May 2013. Recapping the dramatic Whitlam-Nixon openings to China of the 1970s—in which he participated—Ross Terrill’s new study finds fascinating themes for China policy today. Our Asia–Pacific region prospers, but the seas off China are not tranquil. American policies protect Australia, but they worry...

 

ASPI

Planning the Unthinkable War: 'AirSea Battle' and its Implications for Australia, April 2013. The publication, written by ASPI’s senior analyst in defence strategy Benjamin Schreer, analyses the US military’s new ‘AirSea Battle’ concept. In the Asia-Pacific region, the concept is primarily designed to counter China’s growing military power. The paper says Australia does not have...

 

ASPI

Strategic Contours: The Rise of Asia and Australian Strategic Policy, July 2012. This report, authored by Rod Lyon, is a new assessment of the rise of Asia and its impact on Australian strategic policy. It provides an in-depth strategic assessment of a region where the dominant strategic condition is neither cooperation nor competition, but a strange blend of both—‘coopetit...

 

ASPI

Two Steps Forward, One Step Back: Indonesia's Arduous Path of Reform, January 2012. Australians have long worried about whether Indonesia is ‘special’ or ‘normal’. Instead, we need to deal with Indonesia as it really is—a country experiencing simultaneously the challenges of political reform, economic development and a shifting regional security environment. The countr...

 

ASPI

Beyond bin Laden: Future Trends in Terrorism, December 2011. This Strategy report examines the shifting patterns of global terrorism. It is the first major ASPI report on terrorism since the death of Osama bin Laden in May 2011. The report provides a comprehensive assessment of the geographic, operational and ideological trends that are driving the current wave of ji...

 

ASPI

Our Near Abroad: Australia and Pacific Islands Regionalism, November 2011. This report, authored by Richard Herr and Anthony Bergin, suggests that with rising Chinese influence in the region, the US appears to doubt that Australia can deliver on South Pacific issues. The Pacific Island members of the United Nations now meet under the rubric of the Pacific Small Islands Developing Sta...

 

ASPI

Forks in the River: Australia's Strategic Options in a Transformational Asia, June 2011. This report, authored by Rod Lyon, argues that Australia will be drawn increasingly to grow its strategic engagement with Asian partners. An Asian engagement strategy should sit alongside our existing policies of alliance and self-reliance to provide a complementary set of approaches to enhancing Australian int...

 

ASPI

Changing Pace: ASPI's Strategic Assessment 2011, February 2011. This report provides an in-depth strategic assessment of a world where the pace of change appears to be accelerating. The relative slippage in US power, and the broader decline of Western influence, portend an era of fraying global leadership. The assessment suggests Australia will have to worry about two strategi...

 

ASPI

Regionalism and Community: Australia's Options in the Asia-Pacific, November 2010. This report, authored by Philomena Murray, explores the challenges of building a stronger ‘community’ in the Asia-Pacific. It does so by using a ‘comparative regionalism’ approach, drawing upon the lessons of region-building efforts elsewhere. Philomena argues in this paper...

 

ASPI

Southeast Asia: Patterns of Security Cooperation, September 2010. Strategically, Southeast Asia sits at the intersection of the wider world and Australia’s local neighbourhood; what happens there matters to Australia. But the broader Asian security environment is in flux, and an era of strategic quiescence in Southeast Asia may be drawing to a close. Security trends there...

 

ASPI

How Important are Exports and Foreign Direct Investment for Economic Growth in the People's Republic of China? July 2013. The global financial crisis and the recent growth slowdown in the People's Republic of China (PRC) have led to questions about the sustainability of the PRC's growth. The commonly used argument is that the PRC is too dependent on external demand and that it needs to rebalance its economy toward domestic consumption. However, conventional measures of external demand—share of net exports and exports as a share of gross domestic product (GDP)—are biased and do not accurately measure the contribution of external demand to GDP growth...

 

ADB

Pacific Economic Monitor, July 2013. This edition of the Pacific Economic Monitor updates 2013 and 2014 GDP growth and inflation projections for ADB's Pacific developing member countries. The theme of the policy briefs included in this issue is regional cooperation and integration.

 

ADB

Cross-Border Price Differentials and Goods Market Integration in East Asia, June 2013. As cross-border movements of goods, capital, and labor are intensifying, it is likely that goods markets in East Asia will become increasingly integrated. This study investigates the current state of goods market integration in East Asia by measuring the extent of cross-border price differentials. Specifically, this study shows that compared with the European Union, East Asian markets are neither sufficiently integrated nor are they showing any price convergence over time.

 

ADB

The Service Sector in India, June 2013. The service sector is the largest and fastest growing sector in India and has the highest labor productivity, but employment has not kept pace with the share of the sector in gross domestic product and has not produced the number or quality of jobs needed. There is no policy leading to inclusive growth, and multiple, uncoordinated governing bodies adversely affect the growth of the sector. Many regulations are outdated, and there are restrictions and barriers on foreign direct investment...

 

ADB

Asian Capital Market Integration: Theory and Evidence, June 2013. This paper assesses the progress achieved thus far in capital market integration in Asia, and compares regional capital market integration with global financial integration. The study also assesses the degree to which volatility in equity- and bond-market returns driven by financial turmoil originating at both the regional and global levels spills over into emerging Asia domestic equity and bond markets...

 

ADB

Effects of Quantitative Easing on Asia: Capital Flows and Financial Markets, June 2013. This paper studies the effects of the United States’ (US) quantitative easing on Asia by examining capital flows and financial markets. After the global financial crisis, Asian economies with more open and developed capital markets experienced greater swings in capital inflows. In particular, large capital flows were manifest more in portfolio investment and other investment such as bank loans than in foreign direct investment. Empirical analysis shows quantitative easing, in particular the first round, significantly contributed to the rebounding of capital inflows to the region after the onset of the crisis by lowering domestic yield rates as well as credit default swap premiums...

 

ADB

The Social Protection Index: Assessing Results for Asia and the Pacific, Published 2013. This report analyzes comprehensive 2009 data on government social protection programs in 35 countries in Asia and the Pacific. The Asian Development Bank (ADB) used its Social Protection Index to help assess the nature and the effectiveness of these programs, as well as to facilitate cross-country comparisons...

 

ADB

Low-Carbon Green Growth in Asia - Policies and Practices, Published 2013. Asia is at a crossroads. As the world's most populous region, with a rising share of global greenhouse gas emissions, and as the region most vulnerable to climate risks, this book recognizes low-carbon green growth is imperative for developing Asia. It reviews low-carbon policy initiatives taken by Asian countries at the national, sectoral, and local levels, while assessing the achievements, identifying the gaps, and examining new opportunities.

 

ADB

Same Energy, More Power: Accelerating Energy Efficiency in Asia, Published 2013

 

ADB

Pacific Energy Update 2013, Published 2013

 

ADB

New Energy Architecture: Myanmar, Published 2013

 

ADB

Lao People's Democratic Republic: Energy Sector Assessment, Strategy, and Road Map 2013 Update, Publisehd 2013

 

ADB

Fiji: Update, June 2013

 

ADB

Gender Tool Kit: Transport - Maximizing the Benefits of Improved Mobility for All, Published 2013

 

ADB

Guidebook: Increasing Climate Change Resilience of Urban Water Infrastructure, Published 2013.

 

ADB

Bhutan Transport 2040: Integrated Strategic Vision, Published 2013

 

ADB

Japanese Historical Reconciliation Should Begin at Home with Okinawa, June 2013. Somei Kobayashi, recent Japan Studies Visiting Fellow at the East-West Center in Washington, explains that "Japan-Okinawa historical reconciliation that is premised on human rights could become a prototype for historical reconciliation between Japan and other Asian states."

 

EWC

Australia and India: Indo-Pacific Partners, June 2013. David Brewster, Visiting Fellow at the Strategic and Defense Studies Center, Australian National University, explains that "The development of the India-Australia relationship is consistent with Washington's objectives for both countries to take a more active security role in the Indian Ocean and can also be seen as part of a slow tilt by India towards the US security sphere."

 

EWC

Malaysia's Election and Najib’s Challenged Mandate, June 2013. Bridget Welsh, Associate Professor of Political Science at the Singapore Management University, explains that "Najib now faces multiple challenges, from electoral legitimacy and inclusive national representation across ethnic communities and classes, to building confidence in political institutions and engaging a more demanding citizen."

 

EWC

South Korea's Response to Human Rights Abuses in North Korea: An Analysis of Policy Options, June 2013. For decades, North Korea has been the site of brutal human rights violations, leaving the international community struggling to develop an effective response. This has been a particular policy dilemma in South Korea, where people are deeply sympathetic to those suffering, but are equally concerned about security and unification. In recent years, South Korea’s policy response has been characterized by partisan divisions and bitter disputes. The debate has centered on efforts to pass a North Korean Human Rights Act, and the question of whether the South Korean National Human Rights Commission should address issues in the North. As the Park Geun Hye administration establishes policy, four principles should guide the process: avoid using North Korean human rights as a partisan political tool; concentrate on promoting multilateral initiatives; mainstream attention to North Korean rights issues within all relevant South Korean agencies; and ensure that the focus on North Korea does not distract from needed attention to domestic rights issues.

 

EWC

The Lowy Institute Poll 2013: Australia and the World. The ninth annual Lowy Institute Poll reports the results of a nationally representative survey of 1,002 Australian adults conducted by mobile and fixed-line telephone in Australia between 4 and 20 March 2013. The 2013 Poll rated the major political parties on a range of key foreign policy issues in the lead-up to the 2013 election. Other significant issues covered in the Poll include: the comparative importance of China and the United States to Australia; support for the US alliance and US bases; attitudes towards China, the economy, boat arrivals and offshore processing; support for action on climate change, and views on the Afghanistan war, WikiLeaks and terrorism.

 

Lowy

Saving Multilateralism: The G20, the WTO, and Global Trade, June 2013. As the world’s premier international economic forum, the G20 should take a keen interest in the maintenance of a robust multilateral trading system. Although the initial leaders’ summits did make strong references to the importance of maintaining open markets and completing the Doha Round of trade negotiations, subsequent meetings have seen trade slide down the agenda. Meanwhile, the multilateral trading system appears to be losing relevance as leading economies contemplate new, mega-regional trade agreements that would see global rules set outside the WTO...

 

Lowy

Great Southern Lands: Building Ties between Australia and Brazil, Published 2013. This report brings together four essays from Australian and Brazilian authors that collectively aim to shed some light on Brazil and its future importance to Australia and the world. It presents a series of perspectives on the modern Brazilian economy, its economic history, its ties with Australia, and its place in the world economy...

 

Lowy

APEC Cooperative Energy Efficiency Design for Sustainability (CEEDS); Phase 4, June 2013. Phase 4 of the APEC Cooperative Energy Efficiency Design for Sustainability (CEEDS) project focused on Energy Service Company (ESCO). Previous phases of CEEDS addressed appliance energy standards and labeling (Phase 1), building energy codes (Phase 2) and energy-efficient urban passenger transportation (Phase 3). All three topics are among the high-performance policies identified as having the potential to help APEC economies achieve the energy savings goals adopted by APEC leaders...

 

APEC

APEC Economic and Technical Cooperation, June 2013 provides a quick overview of APEC’s ECOTECH capacity building projects and activities. Economic and Technical Cooperation (ECOTECH) is aimed at fostering sustainable and inclusive growth and development in the Asia-Pacific and improving overall economic and social well-being of all citizens living across the APEC region.

 

APEC

Workshop "Best Practices on Educating Food Safety Standards to SMEs", May 2013. This workshop became an unprecedented meeting to discuss the importance of SMEs in the safety of food being supplied, produced, traded and consumed by APEC economies. It became apparent that SMEs receive awareness, education and training in food safety to enable better adherence and conformity to regulations.

 

APEC

Green Public Procurement in the Asia Pacific Region: Challenges and Opportunities for Green Growth and Trade, April 2013. This report reviews and analyzes the progress of Green Public Procurement (GPP) policies, challenges and opportunities in APEC economies in the context of green growth and promotion of trade in environmental goods and services (EGS). It includes the elaboration of a database of environmental criteria of eight groups of products. The information considered in this study has been gathered through questionnaires and bibliography review.

 

APEC

Guidelines for Climate Proofing Investment in the Energy Sector, May 2013 provides a step-by-step methodological approach to help project teams assess and incorporate climate change adaptation measures into energy investment projects. While the focus of the guidelines is at the project level, an improved understanding of climate change impacts should also be used to incorporate climate change considerations into energy planning and policy at the country level.

 

ADB

Developing South Asia: Lessons & Insights, Published 2013 showcases eight projects that delivered exemplary and significant results in their implementation. These projects represent various sectors such as energy, urban development, transport, information and communications technology, irrigation, and disaster risk reduction...

 

ADB

On the Use of FTAs: A Review of Research Methodologies, May 2013. There has been much confusion, rather than debate, on the use of free trade agreements (FTAs). Unfortunately, a large part of the confusion is caused by the absence of consensus on the meaning of key terms such as the “utilization rate” and “usage rate” of FTAs, and the lack of knowledge on upward or downward biases from various information sources regarding the use of FTAs. Rather than making an original empirical contribution, this article reviews existing studies on the issue and attempts to identify the relevant methodologies for assessing the use of FTAs.

 

ADB

Supporting the Growth and Spread of International Production Networks in Asia: How Can Trade Policy Help? May 2013. Free trade agreements (FTAs) have been proliferating in Asia for more than a decade. International fragmentation of production and the resultant cross-border production networks have been growing for a much longer period. Although FTAs are not necessary for the formation of production networks, can they support their further growth or spread? Empirical studies of this issue have produced mixed results, presumably because the causality can run either way. Therefore, this paper employs a qualitative approach that carefully examines the characteristics of both product fragmentation trade and FTAs in Asia to ascertain possible linkages. We find the relationship to be tenuous
for a number of reasons...

 

ADB

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

June, 2013

 

 

 

 

 

 

Export Performance of South and East Asia in Modern Services, 2013. Advancements in information and communications technologies (ICTs) have increased the possibilities for trade in modern services and many Asian emerging and developed economies are participating increasingly in these new trade activities. This paper examines the export performance of these emerging and developed Asian economies in selected modern services: computer and information services, business and professional services, and telecommunications services, using a stochastic frontier gravity type model...

 

ASARC

International Journal of Korean Studies, Volume XVI, Number 2, 2012  

IJKS

International Journal of Korean Studies, Volume XVI, Number 1, 2012  

IJKS

Finish the Job: Jump-Start Afghanistan's Economy, November 2012. This paper begins by acknowledging the dire political and security situation facing Afghanistan as the U.S. and NATO draw down their forces there. However, it sees the key driver of change not in these spheres, important as they are, but in the economy, which could plummet with the sudden loss of orders for goods and services resulting from the military drawdown. Unless the economic crisis is addressed, the political and security situations will not improve...

 

ISDP

Against the Grain: How Georgia Fought Corruption and What It Means, September 2012. In recent years, the struggle against corruption has turned into a major industry with an estimated global turnover of at least US$ 100 million annually. Deeply marred by corruption, the post-Soviet region has been one of the main target areas. The international consensus on how corruption should be fought is based on a gradual approach where the key challenge is to build momentum by targeting corruption in some particularly affected sectors...

 

ISDP

Sovereign Risk, Elections, and Contagion, May 2013 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. This study leads to three main findings. First, in normal economic situations, elections and government turnovers expand bond spreads, demonstrating investors’ concern over the possibility of government policies or instability brought by the election. During a crisis, however, investors prefer change, indicating hope in new policies ameliorate public finances. Second...

 

ADB

How Expansion of Public Services Affects the Poor: Benefit Incidence Analysis for the Lao People's Democratic Republic, May 2013. Studies of the incidence of benefits from public services have rightly stressed the difference between average and marginal benefits. Cross sectional methods of analysis for Lao PDR indicate that for public education and health services, total benefits are highest for the best-off quintile groups. Nevertheless, these groups’ shares of marginal benefits are generally considerably lower and the marginal benefit shares of poorer quintile groups are correspondingly higher...

 

ADB

Governance and Economic Integration: Stakes for Asia, May 2013  assesses the nexus between changes in governance structures—at national and cooperative international levels—and evolutionary processes of economic integration in light of regional policy targets in Asia. The analysis highlights the importance of improved governance as an essential condition for effectively attaining an "Asian Economic Community" while arguing that the experience of the European Union offers valuable insights regarding the process of integration..

 

ADB

Development Trajectories, Emission Profile, and Policy Actions: Singapore, May 2013. Singapore is the most industrialized and urbanized country in Southeast Asia and is totally dependent on oil and natural gas imports to satisfy its energy needs. Its national energy policy framework seeks to find a balance between maintaining Singapore’s competitiveness, improving energy security, and enhancing environmental sustainability. This paper discusses where Singapore stands with regard to its energy consumption and CO2 emissions, its energy policies to date, and those that will be implemented in the near future.

 

ADB

What Lessons Can Asia Draw from Capital Controls in Brazil during 2008-2012? May 2013. Driven by waves of foreign capital inflows and outflows, Indonesia, the Republic of Korea, and Thailand—among several other emerging markets—have resorted to capital control policy since 2006. Are capital controls effective? Controls on capital inflows have been experiencing a renaissance since 2008, with several prominent Asian and Latin American countries implementing them. This paper focuses on Brazil, which instituted five changes in its capital account regime over 2008–2011. It concludes that the effectiveness of capital controls should be viewed on a case-by-case basis, together with the political economy considerations, and other policy tools, i.e., foreign exchange intervention.

 

ADB

Virginia Review of Asian Studies 2013  

VRAS

The Emerging Japan-India Relationship: Nuclear Anachronism, Militarism and Growth Fetish, May 2013. The emerging India-Japan relationship has been met with extreme reactions – from enthusiasm and protests in India and Japan, to concern in China. This new “strategic partnership,” and particularly the nuclear cooperation under negotiation, does not portend well for Asia. P K Sundaram, a strong advocate of better relations between the people of India and Japan, tells us why...

 

APJ

Much Ado over Small Islands: The Sino-Japanese Confrontation over Senkaku/Diaoyu, May 2013. More than six decades from the San Francisco Treaty that purportedly resolved the Asia-Pacific War and created a system of peace, East Asia in 2013 remains troubled by the question of sovereignty over a group of tiny, uninhabited islands. The governments of Japan, China, and Taiwan all covet and claim sovereignty over the Senkaku/Diaoyu islands...

 

APJ

Concentrating Solar Power – China’s New Solar Frontier, May 2013. While all eyes have been focused on China’s dramatic recasting of the global solar PV industry, and the trade disputes engendered with the US and EU, there is another solar frontier now emerging, involving grid-connected concentrating solar power (CSP) plants. China is committed to developing capacity of 3 GW by 2015 (more than doubling cumulative world capacity) and 10 GW by 2020, which would make it by far the world’s CSP leader, with consequent dramatic impact on cost reductions, driving the diffusion of CSP around the world as key challenger and alternative to nuclear and fossil power...

 

APJ

After Hiroshima, May 2013. By taking on the incomprehensible destruction wrought by the atomic bomb in the book After Hiroshima, artist elin o’Hara slavick faces a void of annihilation that transcends expression, and yet, with meticulous care and consciousness, she produces photographic exposures that illuminate the unspeakable. Through works of troubling beauty, slavick enacts a temporal rupture, unearthing a moment that has been relegated to the historical past by saying, with stark but quiet clarity, that Hiroshima 1945 is not over...

 

APJ

Education or Migrant Labor: A New Dilemma in China's Borderland, May 2013. Early 21st-cenutry China is undergoing several radical transformations that are profoundly affecting its physical, social, and cultural fabric. Not as dramatic, perhaps, as the earlier series of Land Reform, collectivization, Great Leap Forward, Cultural Revolution, and final decollectivization that framed the era of Mao Zedong’s state socialism, the current processes of urbanization, labor migration, universalization of education, transport network modernization, reconstruction of villages, and social class formation, nevertheless seem destined to have an even more permanent and profound effect on the physical landscape, social structure, and culture of the world’s largest nation...

 

APJ

Lessons from Fukushima: An Assessment of the Investigations of the Nuclear Disaster, May 2013. Following the Fukushima nuclear disaster of 2011, the Japanese Cabinet, the Japanese Diet, a private-sector group as well as the operator of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear facility, TEPCO, each set up an investigation commission to examine the causes of the accident, scrutinize the crisis response and make recommendations for future policies. This article provides some background on the four commissions and then examines and assesses the contents of the reports. Four key conclusions emerge from the analysis...

 

APJ

An Emerging Fukushima Model? May 2013. After two years in which international attention focused on Fukushima as an emblem of disaster, Fukushima's plans for immense floating wind farm projects have begun to attract international attention. This April 15 article “Fukushima Moves Forward With World’s Largest Wind Farm” reminds us that the prefecture’s projects are bold initiatives which could pioneer a new model of offshore and large-scale deployment. The article also lauds Fukushima’s aim of getting 40% of its power from renewables by 2020, and then fully 100% by 2040...

 

APJ

South Korea's Christian Military Chaplaincy in the Korean War - Religion as Ideology? May 2013. The present paper examines the military chaplaincy in the context of a problem which has long intrigued researchers, namely the reasons for the rapid growth of the Christian (Protestant and Catholic) churches in 1950-80s South Korea compared to Japan or Taiwan. The author suggests that, whereas a general answer to the question may be the use of Christianity as a de facto state ideology in the years 1948-1960 and its functioning as an ideology of capitalist modernisation in the 1960s-80s, a particularly important part of government-induced Christianization of South Korea was the institution of military chaplaincy...

 

APJ

Deciphering Australia's Defense Budget, May 2013. Mark Thomson, Senior Analyst at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI), explains that “If the symbolic political target of a budget surplus cannot be reached, the remaining constraints on spending are weak. So, counter intuitively, the failure to deliver a surplus has enabled an increase in defense spending.”

 

EWC

South Korea: National Security or National Pride Regarding Japan? May 2013. Krista E. Wiegand, recent POSCO Visiting Fellow at the East-West Center, explains that "The South Korean government will not be able to deal with the larger issue of security relations with Japan until disputed issues symbolized by Dokdo/Takeshima are sufficiently resolved—and the likelihood of this happening anytime soon is fairly low."

 

EWC

Europe's Innovation Union--Beyond Techno-Nationalism? August 2012. This paper traces recent transformations in Europe's innovation policy--the move towards EU-wide policy coordination in the form of an "Innovation Union." A deep fiscal crisis and increasingly severe austerity policies are slowing down Europe's move towards greater openness and internationalization of its innovation system. The paper asks whether Europe has left behind for good "techno-nationalism," or whether government action in support of high-tech industries through various forms of protectionist policies is re-emerging, this time however on a region-wide scale. This question is of relevance to current policy debates about the role of innovation in the US as well as in Asia's emerging economies. The paper specifically explores what lessons the US and emerging Asia might draw from Europe's move towards an EU-wide Innovation Strategy.

 

EWC

Global Technology Sourcing in China's Integrated Circuit Design Industry: A Conceptual Framework and Preliminary Findings, August 2012. The paper examines the role of global technology sourcing, and its drivers and impacts in China's integrated circuit (IC) design industry. IC design is one of the priority targets of China's innovation policy, as codified especially in the "Strategic Emerging Industries" initiative. At the same time, however, China's IC design industry is deeply integrated into the vertically disintegrated global semiconductor industry, through markets, investment and technology. The paper highlights a fundamental challenge for China's innovation strategy: How can China reconcile its primary objective of strengthening indigenous innovation with the benefits that it could reap from its deep integration into international trade and into global networks of production and innovation.

 

EWC

Public-Private Dialogue on Investment - Corporate Social Responsibility for Local Communities, June 2013. This report provides a summary and recommendations of the dialogue held in Indonesia in January 2013.

 

APEC

International Investment Agreements Negotiators Handbook: APEC/UNCTAD MODULES, May 2013 aims to provide practical and user-friendly information to negotiators of International Investment Agreements (IIAs) in order to assist them in the decision-making process towards concluding IIAs compatible with national policy objectives. For experienced negotiators, the Handbook offers a quick and practical reminder of the main policy options, issues and implications at stake. For less experienced negotiators and other government officials, it helps to better understand IIAs. Written in plain language, it may also serve as an educational tool for capacity building.

 

APEC

APEC's Bogor Goals Dashboard, May 2013 was compiled by the Policy Support Unit and includes indicators gathered from respectable public sources only. The Dashboard includes information publicly available as at 10 January 2013. The purpose of the Dashboard is to provide easy-to-understand figures to track the advances in areas critical to promoting greater regional economic integration, such as liberalization and facilitation of trade and investment. The intention is to display a set of harmonized indicators laying out the evolution across time of certain aspects of trade and investment liberalization and facilitation in quantitative terms, and to complement the Bogor Goals Progress Reports as part of the assessment to determine APEC’s progress towards these goals.

 

APEC

APEC Wine Regulatory Forum 2012, Published 2013. On 5-10 November 2012, the APEC Wine Regulators Forum meeting 'Risk Management & Certification in Wine Trade: Public-Private Dialogue' was held in Auckland, New Zealand. This was a follow-up to the highly successful meeting in San Francisco, USA, in September 2011. The key themes of the meeting were risk management and certification in the APEC wine trade.

 

APEC

The Service Sector in Lower-Income Asian Economies, May 2013. In the past 10 years, the service sector has been a significant contributor to overall economic growth in Bangladesh, Cambodia, Nepal, Papua New Guinea, Uzbekistan, and Viet Nam. Sector growth has been supported by strong industrial growth in some while in others the critical factors have been liberalization, structural reforms, government support, and foreign investments. In order to increase the labor productivity of the sector and realize its potential to contribute to inclusive growth, these countries must address gaps in human capital and the higher costs of setting up new businesses and of doing business that stifle entrepreneurship and private enterprise...

 

ADB

Are Government-Linked Corporations Crowding out Private Investment in Malaysia? May 2013. Private investment in Malaysia has been sluggish since the Asian financial crisis. One explanation is that the growing presence of government-linked corporations (GLCs) has been crowding out private investment. This paper presents evidence of the negative impact government-linked corporations have on private investment in Malaysia due to their dominance over private firms in various sectors.

 

ADB

Exporting and Innovation: Theory and Firm-Level Evidence from the People's Republic of China, April 2013. Using firm-level data from the People's Republic of China (PRC) and matching econometrics, the paper finds that exporters invest more in innovation than non-exporters. Still, exporting has a smaller impact on innovation among firms in the electronics sectors, located at coastal areas, and foreign-owned...

 

ADB

Corporate Investments in Asian Emerging Markets: Financial Conditions, Financial Development, and Financial Constraints, April 2013. Motivated by the literature on the finance–growth nexus, this paper explores the mechanisms through which finance affects corporate investments and capital accumulation...

 

ADB

Disaster Risk Management in Asia and the Pacific: Issues Paper, April 2013. This issues paper aims to help ADB DMC governments integrate Disaster Risk Management into their national developmental strategies and examine how emerging economies of Asia can cooperate to improve their disaster risk management practices, in view of increasing risks of compound disasters, climate change, and expanding production networks...

 

ADB

Impact of the Global Crisis on Asian Migrant Workers and Their Families: A Survey-Based Analysis with a Gender Perspective, April 2013. This publication examines the impact of the crisis among migrant workers and their families - with a gender perspective - to provide useful information for better evidence-based policy making. Based on household surveys in Indonesia and the Philippines, the results show that women are in worse condition and are more vulnerable than men...

 

ADB

Connecting South Asia and Southeast Asia: Interim Report, Published 2013. This interim report analyzes how closer regional connectivity and economic integration between South Asia and Southeast Asia can benefit both subregions, with a focus on the role played by infrastructure and public policies in facilitating this process. It examines major developments in South Asia–Southeast Asia trade and investment, economic cooperation, the role of economic corridors, and regional cooperation initiatives...

 

ADB

Low-Carbon Green Growth in Asia: Policies and Practices: Executive Summary, Published 2013. This booklet is an executive summary of a forthcoming book that will review and assess the low-carbon and green policies and practices taken by Asian countries. Low-carbon green growth is an imperative for developing Asia and the region must be at the center in the fight against climate change. Many emerging economies have started the shift toward a new sustainable development paradigm that will bring competitiveness to their industries and serve growing green technology markets.

 

ADB

Managing Migration to Support Inclusive and Sustainable Growth, Published 2013. This booklet is an executive summary of a forthcoming book that will review and assess the low-carbon and green policies and practices taken by Asian countries. Low-carbon green growth is an imperative for developing Asia and the region must be at the center in the fight against climate change. Many emerging economies have started the shift toward a new sustainable development paradigm that will bring competitiveness to their industries and serve growing green technology markets.

 

ADB

Bhutan Living Standards Survey 2012 Report, Published 2013. The report presents the analysis on the progress of Bhutan in improving their people's lives in terms of health, education, employment, income and expenditure, housing, access to public facilities and services, social capital and also in terms of non-traditional measures, such as self-rated poverty and happiness. The BLSS 2012, together with the BLSS 2007, is an important tool for assessing the government's 2008–2013 development plan. It will also be an important input for the succeeding government plan...

 

ADB

The Global Financial Crisis, Future of the Dollar, and the Choice for Asia, Published 2011. This book contains papers delivered at the conference "The Global Financial Crisis, Future of the Dollar, and the Choice of Asia" held in Seoul, Republic of Korea, on 1 June 2009. It also contains verbatim records of the round table discussions at the conference. The participants' candid comments on such topics as the economic rise of the People's Republic of China, the future of the dollar as a reserve currency, and the prospects for economic recovery offer valuable insights into the thinking of leading scholars and policymakers as Asia worked to recover from the global financial crisis that had begun two years earlier.

 

ADB

Sovereign Credit Ratings, May 2013

 

PIDS

Can the Philippine Auto Industry Survive Smuggling? March 2013

 

PIDS

Where Are the Poor Employed? Profiling the Working Poor, Februrary 2013

 

PIDS

Community-based Approaches Toward Upgrading of Informal Settlements: Alternative Strategies and Recommendations for Policymaking, February 2013

 

PIDS

Enhanced K to 12 Basic Education Program: Opportunities and Challenges, December 2012

 

PIDS

Conditional Cash Transfer Program in the Philippines: Is It Reaching the Extremely Poor? December 2012

 

PIDS

Managing the ASEAN Economic Integration Process in the Philippines: An Assessment of Progress in Trade Liberalization and Facilitation, December 2012

 

PIDS

The Philippine Economy in 2012 and Prospects for 2013, Jan-March 2013

 

PIDS

Education for All: Addressing Problems in Primary Schooling, November-December 2012

 

PIDS

Pursuing the Twin Objectives of Economic Integration and Social Inclusion, September-October 2012

 

PIDS

Rice Self-sufficiency = No Rice Imports: Is It really Feasible? July-August 2012

 

PIDS

Reading between the Poverty Lines: Revisions in the Official Poverty Thresholds, May-June 2012

 

PIDS

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

May, 2013

 

 

 

 

 

 

Creating an Association of Southeast Asian Nations Payment System: Policy and Regulatory Issues, May 2013. ASEAN is expected to benefit from the significant growth in the Asia-Pacific payments market. Enabling the scale and scope of payments would in turn increase economic activity. This would also require national payment systems to be regionalized and operate with cross-border and multi-currency capabilities. As existing regional payment arrangements have illustrated how they can be successfully established, ASEAN can itself leverage on its current cooperative forums in creating a more regionalized payment system. This paper assesses the challenges ASEAN faces in doing so.

 

ADB

Basic Statistics 2013 covers the indicators of the Millennium Development Goals (MDG) such as the proportion of population living below $1.25 (PPP) a day, infant mortality rate, carbon dioxide emissions. It also contains data on basic economic indicators such as the gross domestic product (GDP), inflation rate, trade balance, external debt, fiscal balance, and others.

 

ADB

Flood Risk Management: A Strategic Approach, Published 2013 focuses on strategic flood risk management policy and practice, and provides an overview of
  • the historical developments and emerging trends in flood management;
  • the purpose and characteristics of modern flood risk management;
  • the goals, objectives and outcomes sought;
  • the ongoing challenges in developing and implementing flood risk management in practice together with some of the common pitfalls and misconceptions; and
  • a summary of some specific tools and techniques and how they support good decision making.
 

ADB

Development Effectiveness Review: 2012 Report, Published 2013. The 2012 Development Effectiveness Review (DEfR) is the sixth annual corporate performance report of the Asian Development Bank (ADB). The review found that the development effectiveness review process introduced in 2008 has successfully propagated a results culture across ADB. This has led to improved performance in most areas of the results framework measuring ADB’s operational and organizational effectiveness. As a result, ADB has been able to meet an increasing proportion of its targets. It has also expanded ADB’s contributions to development outcomes in the region.

 

ADB

Japan's Disaster Relief Diplomacy: Fostering Military Cooperation in Asia, May 2013. Hideshi Futori, recent Japan Studies Visiting Fellow at the East-West Center in Washington, explains that "First, the realm of HA/DR is a rare opportunity for Japan to actively engage in military cooperation with China."

 

EWC

Conflict Prevention Urgent for the Senkaku Conundrum, May 2013. Masako Ikegami, Professor of Political Science at Stockholm University, explains that "Future peace and prosperity in East Asia rests upon a peaceful and constructive resolution to the Senkaku conundrum by overcoming the negative legacy of war and imperialism in Asia."

 

EWC

Can a Growing Servces Sector Renew Asia's Economic Growth? April 2013. To continue Asia's economic growth the focus for expansion and improvement must move from export manufacturing to the services sector--primarily to cross-border trade in such modern services as finance, information and communication, and professional business services. As the Asian services-sector economies have historically been dominated by personal services rather than by more information-intensive services, serious concerns exist about their ability to rapidly and successfully grow these modern services...

 

EWC

The Middle-Income Trap: Issues for Members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, May 2013. This paper attempts to study these issues by building an analytical framework based on the factors that determine each development stage of an economy, and by comparing the current situation of four ASEAN middle-income countries with the experience of the Republic of Korea, a country that managed to overcome the middle-income trap and reach the high-income level in the late 1990s.

 

ADB

How Low-Carbon Green Growth Can Reduce Inequalities, May 2013. Half of the world's population—3 billion people—lives below the poverty line, and Asia has the largest share. In pursuit of sustainable economic development and poverty alleviation, there is great potential among low-income households for green consumption, production, innovation, and entrepreneurial activity. This paper shows how an inclusive green growth model can uplift the poor through entrepreneurship and fiscal policy reforms.

 

ADB

Strengthening Health Security - APEC Symposium on Strategies to Control and Prevent Antimicrobial Resistance, May 2013. This report presents the findings at the APEC symposium on strategies to control and prevent antimicrobial resistance (AMR) in the Asia Pacific region. The key objective of the APEC symposium was to discuss and explore future strategies to control and prevent AMR in the Asia Pacific region.

 

APEC

Expanding the Information Technology Agreement, May 2013. This policy brief will argue for an expanded Information Technology agreement (ITA) and show how APEC can play a leading role in that process...

 

APEC

Transport, Energy and Environmental Benefits of Intermodal Freight Strategies Final Report, April 2013. The present report is designed to demonstrate the fuel saving and emission reduction benefits of the increased use of intermodal freight transportation in urban settings and addresses the questions raised by the APEC Working Groups regarding “Transport, Energy and Environmental Benefits of Intermodal Freight Strategies.”

 

APEC

Transport, Energy and Environmental Benefits of Transit Oriented Development Strategies Final Report, April 2013. The report was designed to: a) Assess the “energy, transport and environmental benefits of transit-oriented development (TOD) strategies”; b) Evaluate TOD “in terms of reduced oil imports, pollutants and greenhouse gas emissions, and reduced travel times”; c) Encourage TOD “Through a better understanding of these benefits, … throughout the APEC region”; d) Provide case studies of TOD to demonstrate these concepts

 

APEC

Inflation, its Volatility and the Inflation-Growth Tradeoff in India, 2013

 

ASARC

Estimating India's Fiscal Reaction Function, 2013

 

ASARC

Corporate Retail Outlets are Blessings in Disguise for Unorganized Retail Outlets: An Empirical Analysis in the Indian Context, 2013

 

ASARC

The Role of Bribes in Rural Governance: The Case of India, 2013

 

ASARC

Determinants and Persistence of benefits from the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme: Panel Data Analysis for Rajasthan, India, 2013

 

ASARC

Elderly's Health Shocks and Household's Ex-ante Poverty in India, 2013

 

ASARC

Monetary Authority of Singapore: Macroeconomic Review, Volume XII, Issue 1, April 2013 (Full Report, Presentation Slides for Briefing):  

MAS

Technological Change, Skill Demand, and Wage Inequality in Indonesia, March 2013. This paper examines the empirical implications of technological changes for skill demand and wage inequality in Indonesia. According to the National Labor Force Survey of Indonesia, the share of educated workers and wage skill premium increased significantly over 2003–2009 for overall industry and across the region. An analysis based on demand–supply framework suggests that demand shifts favoring skilled workers during the period...

 

ADB

Federal Transfers and Fiscal Discipline in India: An Empirical Evaluation, March 2013. This paper examines the relationship between federal transfers and fiscal deficits in India. The system of federal transfers has been criticized on the grounds that it distorts the incentives for states to promote fiscal discipline...

 

ADB

Complexity, Specialization, and Growth, March 2013. This paper analyzes the role of complexity in production on the level of output and on its rate of growth...

 

ADB

Regional Cooperation and Integration in a Changing World, Published 2013. This monograph attempts to address some of the financial and trade aspects of integration in Asia. It has two self-contained sections. Section 1 focuses on the costs and benefits of regional integration in general, and concludes with some pointers specific to financial integration. Section 2 deals with trade integration and related policy challenges. The analysis begs many questions. Some—but not all—can be answered by the suggestions offered in the two sections...

 

ADB

RCI Diogest: Monitoring Asian Regional Cooperation and Intergration, Volume 3, Issue 1, December 2012-January 2013. The RCI Digest follows the progress of initiatives under ADB’s four pillars of regional cooperation and integration (RCI): (i) cross.border infrastructure, (ii) trade and investment, (iii) money and finance, and (iv) regional public goods...

 

ADB

Disaster Risk Management in Asia and the Pacific: Issues Paper, April 2013. This issues paper aims to help ADB DMC governments integrate Disaster Risk Management into their national developmental strategies and examine how emerging economies of Asia can cooperate to improve their disaster risk management practices, in view of increasing risks of compound disasters, climate change, and expanding production networks...

 

ADB

Development Asia: Can Asia Beat the Menace of Rising Inequality? April 2013. In this issue, Development Asia examines Asia’s widening inequality from many different perspectives. It looks at the role of globalization in producing inequality, and considers the disputed relationship between inequality and economic growth...

 

ADB

Beyond Factory Asia: Fuelling Growth in a Changing World, Published 2013. How can regional economies move beyond Factory Asia? What strategies can Asian economies pursue to meet these challenges? This monograph will examine a range of policy, institutional, legal, and regulatory issues relating to reforms that will drive Asia’s economic and social transformation in its quest for a new Factory Asia model...

 

ADB

ADB Annual Report 2012: Main Report, Financial Report. In 2012, the Board of Directors continued to oversee the implementation of Strategy 2020—ADB’s paramount (Status as of 31 December 2012) View infographic in higher resolution. strategic framework to guide all its operations to 2020—as it deliberated and took decisions to improve ADB’s responsiveness, development effectiveness, and accountability. ADB’s operations in 2012 totaled $21.57 billion. Of this amount, $13.30 billion was financed by ADB and Special Funds, and $8.27 billion by cofinancing partners. Meanwhile, ADB’s cofinancing operations continue to extend the impact of our development assistance...

 

ADB

America's Unchecked Security State: Part II: The Continuity of COG Detention Planning, 1948-2001, April 2013

 

APJ

America's Unchecked Security State: Part I: The Toxic Legacy of J. Edgar Hoover’s Illegal Powers, April 2013

 

APJ

Yet Another Lost Decade? Whither Japan's North Korea Policy under Abe Shinzō, April 2013

 

APJ

Japan Under Neonationalist, Neoliberal Rule: Moving Toward an Abyss? April 2013

 

APJ

Why Now is a Good Time for Economic Engagement of North Korea, April 2013

 

APJ

Ikeda Manabu, the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake, and Disaster/Nuclear Art in Japan, April 2013

 

APJ

Uncomfortable Questions in the Wake of Nuclear Accidents at Fukushima and Chernobyl, April 2013

 

APJ

Pakistan's Nuclear Labyrinth and the Future of Democratization, April 2013. Yogesh Joshi, Ph.D Candidate at Jawaharlal Nehru University, and Frank O'Donnell, Ph.D Candidate at King's College London, explain that "The paradox for the international community is that a strong military ensures the safety of Pakistan's nuclear arsenal, even when that same force is the biggest obstacle to a lasting democracy."

 

EWC

The Ongoing Talibanization of Karachi, April 2013. Alok Bansal, Executive Director of the South Asian Institute for Strategic Affairs in New Delhi, explains that "The window of opportunity for the Pakistani state to contain the growing influence of the TTP in Karachi is rapidly declining."

 

EWC

Dignity in International Relations, April 2013. David I. Steinberg, Distinguished Professor of Asian Studies, School of Foreign Service, Georgetown University, writes that "The need for dignity in international negotiations is an essential component for dealing with unpleasant or enemy regimes if one is to attain some of the objectives of such negotiations."

 

EWC

Why China's Return to the Sea May Not Be All Bad, April 2013. Christian Le Mière, Senior Fellow for Naval Forces and Maritime Security at the International Institute for Strategic Studies, explains that "Beijing has avoided major conflict for nearly 35 years, and seems set to continue to do so for the foreseeable future."

 

EWC

How Mobile Is the Footloose Industry? The Case of the Notebook PC Industry in China, Published 2013. This paper reexamines the concept of the "footloose industry" from the perspective of global production networks (GPNs). Among the players in these GPNs, contract manufacturers are believed to be the most footloose, as they are the most sensitive to labor costs. China's notebook personal computer industry is used to illustrate the fact that unique labor institutions in the coastal areas of China have permanently changed the structures of GPNs in that industry, including power relations and production organizations. These changes have made the relocation of manufacturing activities more difficult, and have also given contract manufacturing more power regarding relocation decisions.

 

EWC

Education in Pacific Island States: Reflections on the Failure of 'Grand Remedies', Published 2013. Victor Levine asks a fundamental question of increasing importance to a globalizing region: How can Pacific Island states provide decent public education to their children? Based on broad international experience, he examines the evidence regarding what does and does not work in public education. While the literature suggests numerous instances of declining quality in Pacific public-education systems, Levine finds some basis for optimism about what is possible...

 

EWC

Strengthening the Core of the G20: Clearer Objectives, Better Communication, Greater Transparency and Accountability, April 2013. To be the premier forum for international economic cooperation, the G20 will need to strengthen such core features as clarity of objectives, communication, transparency and accountability. This Analysis outlines what Australia can do in all these areas when it chairs the G20 in 2014...

 

Lowy

India-Australia Poll 2013, April 2013. The India-Australia Poll is a groundbreaking survey of Indian public attitudes towards Australia, with some surprising results. It reveals broadly positive views towards Australia, but lingering concerns about student safety...

 

Lowy

Football Diplomacy Redux: the 2015 Asian Cup and Australia's Engagement with Asia, March 2013. In 2015 Australia will host the Asian Football Confederation’s Asian Cup, bringing together the top 16 national teams in Asia. The tournament will provide opportunities for government, business and community groups to strengthen their engagement with Asia. In order to understand and leverage those opportunities, the Lowy Institute and the Asian Cup Local Organising Committee held a day-long conference on 23 November 2012, bringing together senior government, business, tourism, sport and ...

 

Lowy

The American Chamber of Commerce in the People's Republic of China: White Paper 2013, American Business in China (Bilingual, Full Report)  

AmCham

The 2030 Architecture of Association of Southeast Asian Nations Free Trade Agreements, April 2013. This paper investigates and analyzes the present status, potential, and prospects of Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) free trade agreements (FTAs). The move towards the ASEAN Economic Community by 2015 and the attempts to broaden FTAs in East Asia present major challenges to ASEAN. Ultimately, it is desirable for ASEAN to draw a clear picture of how the architecture of ASEAN FTAs in 2030 can be given shape.

 

ADB

Lessons from the European Spaghetti Bowl, April 2013. European economic integration fascinates and inspires for the way it brought peace to a continent torn by violent and long-standing rivalries. The lessons from Europe, however, cannot be applied directly as the degree of the European Union's supranationality is unthinkable elsewhere. This paper discusses how Europe overcame the specific problem of overlapping free trade agreements (FTAs) with the Pan-European Cumulation System which instituted common rules of origin, regional cumulation of value, and completed the full matrix of bilateral FTAs. After this, Europe had what can be thought of as a "customs union" for rules of origin.

 

ADB

Knowledge Management Directions and Action Plan (2013–2015): Supporting “Finance ++” at the Asian Development Bank, Published 2013. Applying collective know-how to solve complex development challenges is key for achieving lasting development results more quickly. ADB's long-term strategic framework, Strategy 2020, identifies “knowledge solutions” as a driver of change for stimulating growth and synergizing broader assistance in its operations. ADB's goal is to turn them into a comparative advantage for the institution to benefit of Developing Member Countries (DMCs)...

 

ADB

APEC Economic Trends Analysis, April 2013. The PSU’s APEC Economic Trends Analysis provides an overview on emerging trends underlying the region’s economic prospects by providing in-depth analysis on recent macroeconomic and financial developments in the APEC region.

 

APEC

Key Trends and Developments relating to Trade and Investment Measures and their Impact on the APEC Region, April 2013. This report was presented at the Ministers Responsible for Trade Meeting in Surabaya, Indonesia in April 2013. It highlights that there was a sharp deceleration in trade growth as well as a reduction in FDI inflows in 2012, the result of a setback to the global economic recovery that occurred last year...

 

APEC

2012 PSU Annual Report, April 2013. The annual report is a summary of the APEC Policy Support Unit’s operations and activities for the calendar year. It includes an overview of projects and activities undertaken in 2012, a list of completed and current projects, audited financial statements, and information about the PSU.

 

APEC

IFAP Implementation in Facilitating Investment for the Asia Pacific Region, March 2013. The main objectives of this study are to: (i) describe APEC Investment Facilitation Action Plan (IFAP) implementation progress; and (ii) analyse the pattern and trends of foreign investment flows in the APEC region.

 

APEC

The 2013 Interim Assessment for Supply Chain Connectivity Framework Action Plan, March 2013. This report presents the results of the interim assessment on APEC’s Supply Chain Connectivity Framework Action Plan against the target of a 10% improvement in supply chain performance in terms of time, costs and uncertainty by 2015...

 

APEC

Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino: Why "Deepening" Matters in Achieving Its Human Capital Objectives, February 2013

 

PIDS

Why a New Industrial Policy for the Philippines Is Critical, January 2013

 

PIDS

How Critical Is Transport and Logistics Infrastructure to Interregional Trade? The Case of High-value Fruits and Vegetables in Mindanao, December 2012

 

PIDS

The Philippines and East Asia: Building on Partnerships to Take Part in the Region's Dynamism, December 2012

 

PIDS

Toward Deepening East Asian Integration: How Convergent Are the Rules of Origin in the ASEAN+1 Free Trade Agreements, December 2012

 

PIDS

Perceptions and Laws on Unfair Trade Practices in the Philippines, December 2012

 

PIDS

The Urgent Need to Increase Baseload Generating Capacity in Mindanao, November 2012

 

PIDS

Should the Philippines Tariffy its Quantitative Restriction on Rice? October 2012

 

PIDS

Typhoons, Floods, and Droughts: Regional Occurrence and Value of Damages to Rice Farming in the Philippines, September 2012

 

PIDS

Stanford Journal of East Asian Affairs, Volume 12 No. 1 Summer 2012:

Greater China

Japan

Korea

Book Reviews

 

SJEAA

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

April, 2013

 

 

 

 

 

 

Asian Development Outlook 2013: Asia's Energy Challenge (Highlights, Full Report) estimates that regional economic growth in the Asia Pacific region will pick up to 6.6% in 2013 and reach 6.7% in 2014. This is a distinct improvement on 2012, when growth stood at just over 6%. Consumer prices are expected to rise by 4.0% in 2013 and 4.2% in 2014, up from 3.7% last year...  

ADB

Association of Southeast Asian Nations, People's Republic of China, and India Growth and the Rest of the World: The Role of Trade, April 2013. This paper explores the impact of past and future growth in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), the People's Republic of China (PRC), and India—the ACI countries—on aggregate welfare, relative wages, and global emissions in the rest of the world. It outlines several analytical frameworks, considers effects over the past decade and, based on consensus forecasts, the implications of that growth for the rest of the world in the decades to come.

 

ADB

International Price Dispersion and Market Segmentation in Japan and the United States: Theory and Empirics, April 2013. This paper focuses on the pricing behavior of Japanese and United States firms selling their identical products in New York City, Chicago, Osaka, and Tokyo. The authors utilize some simple models of international price dispersion and market segmentation that generate predictions about testable prices. The dataset, which consists of prices of identical products in the Japanese and American cities, was collected and accepted by both governments. Using this data, versions of international price dispersion theories are tested and some empirical evidence to support the view that simple international price dispersion models can partly explain the observed prices is found.

 

ADB

Hong Kong: High Frequency Macroeconomic Forecasts Current Quarter Model: 2013Q2, April 2013. Real GDP in 13Q1 is estimated to increase by 3.9% when compared with the same period last year. This is an upward revision of our previous forecast of 2.9% growth released in January 3, 2013, reflecting a strong pickup in domestic demand. In 13Q2, real GDP growth is forecast to rise by 5.3% when compared with the same period last year...

 

HKU

America's Voluntary Standards System: A 'Best Practice' Model for Asian Innovation Policies? Published 2013. This study reviews the historical roots of the American system, examines its defining characteristics, and highlights its strengths and weaknesses. A tradition of decentralized local self-government has given voice to diverse stakeholders in innovation. However, a lack of effective coordination of multiple stakeholder strategies constrains effective and open standardization processes. Asian countries seeking to improve their standards systems should study the strengths and weaknesses of the American system. Attempts to replicate the US standards system will face clear limitations--persistent differences in Asia's economic institutions, levels of development, and growth models are bound to limit convergence to a US-style market-led voluntary standards system.

 

EWC

Japan's Crucial Role in Afghanistan, April 2013. Victoria Tuke, Visiting Fellow at the Tokyo Foundation, explains why "The centrality of the US-Japan alliance to Japan is an important consideration regarding Afghanistan, but Japan's interests are broader than solely the alliance."

 

EWC

Marine & Ocean Energy Development: An Introduction for Practitioners in APEC Economies, March 2013. This publication is a summary of presentations made at the project final conference (October 16-17, 2012 Vladivostok, Russia) and also draws on various most influential reports on marine power. We designed it to raise awareness among the policy makers and energy practitioners in APEC economies of the tidal power resource and opportunities. A wider audience of interested officials and businesses in APEC economies may also benefit from this concise non-technical reading.

 

APEC

Research Outcomes: Summary of Research Projects 2012, Published 2013.

 

APEC

Characteristics of Chinese Military Culture: A Historical Perspective, April 2013. Military culture influences military thinking and military strategy. Today, the armed forces of the major powers have the goal of defending their national interests and contributing to world peace. For geographical and historical reasons, Chinese military culture developed its own unique orientation. Just as culture is what makes groups different from each another and distinguishes man from the animals, so too is military culture to what distinguishes the armed forces from other social groups. Similarly, Chinese military culture makes China’s armed forces different to those of other countries. These cultural differences express themselves in the characteristics of various countries’ armed forces. Studying Chinese military culture is thus a path toward a better understanding of the characteristics of the Chinese armed forces.

 

ISDP

Historical Changes in Relations Between China and Neighboring Countries (1949 - 2012), March 2013. The concept of the ‘neighborhood’ (zhoubian) has a prominent place in China’s thinking about its foreign policy, as good relations with neighboring countries have great significance for China’s development. There have been three distinct phases in China’s relations with neighboring countries since the foundation of the People’s Republic of China, in each of which the Chinese leadership has proposed different diplomatic policies towards neighboring countries, according to the domestic and international situations. However, with the present rapid economic development of China, there have been some noticeable changes that will present challenges to China’s dealings with neighboring countries. This presentation will provide perspectives on these questions.

 

ISDP

The Road to ASEAN Financial Integration: A Combined Study on Assessing the Financial Landscape and Formulating Milestones for Monetary and Financial Integration in ASEAN, Published 2013. This paper provides a summary assessment of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) on the state of financial integration in the region, with inputs from the Asian Development Bank regional technical assistance project Combined Studies on Assessing the Financial Landscape and Formulating Milestones for Monetary and Financial Integration in ASEAN.

 

ADB

Can Global Value Chains Effectively Serve Regional Economic Development in Asia? March 2013. Regional economic integration through logistics, information network and connectivity improvement can increase the .virtual size‘ of an economy as trade with neighboring countries increases. This leads to substantial benefits from scale, network, coordination and agglomeration economies. As is shown, especially in small economies and LDCs, regional economic integration induces the necessary rebalancing needed for integration of the regional portions of Global Value Chains (GVCs) to the global portions of GVCs. This paper demonstrates this with South Asian case studies in GVC development and with the related mapping methodology...

 

ADB

Preferential and Non-Preferential Approaches to Trade Liberalization in East Asia: What Differences Do Utilization Rates and Reciprocity Make? March 2013. Previous studies on the impacts of free trade agreements (FTAs) in East Asia have assumed full utilization of preferences. The evidence suggests that this assumption is seriously in error, with the estimated uptake particularly low in East Asia. In this paper, we assume a more realistic utilization rate in estimating impacts. We find that actual utilization rates significantly diminish the benefits from preferential liberalization, but in a non-linear way...

 

ADB

Cross-Regional Comparison of Trade Integration: The Case of Services, March 2013. In this paper, we will examine the level of services trade integration in Asia in comparison with Europe and North America. The main empirical findings of this paper are that (i) the regional bias of services trade in Asia is as high or higher than in Europe and North America; (ii) in Asia, the regional bias of services trade is higher than that of goods trade, which is in sharp contrast to Europe and North America, where the regional bias of goods trade is higher than that of services trade; and (iii) while Asia’s regional bias of goods trade shows a declining trend, that of services trade remains high, although in the future its decline is expected...

 

ADB

Asian Development Review, Vol. 30, No. 1, 2013 (Full Report):   ADB

Fulfilling the Promises of South Asian Integration: A Gravity Estimation, April 2013. This paper examines the determinants and trade effects of the South Asian Preferential Trading Arrangement (SAPTA) using empirical methods. An empirical specification of the gravity model is developed to analyze the determinants of trade flows for the South Asian Free Trade Area (SAFTA) countries. The need for maintaining the primacy of economic integration in the region's growth and development processes is highlighted...

 

ADB

Deepening Association of Southeast Asian Nations' Financial Markets, March 2013. This paper discusses the financial landscape of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), a region engaged in building an economic community (a "single market and production base") by 2015. In particular, it reviews where ASEAN's financial markets and institutions now stand and suggests possible ways in which they might be developed further to meet the aspirations of the region.

 

ADB

Consular Conundrum: The Rising Demands and Diminishing Means for Assisting Australians Overseas, March 2013. The demands on Australia’s consular service are growing. Huge numbers of Australians are travelling overseas every year, and the expectations of what the Australian government can or should do for them when they find themselves in distress are rising, driven by media and public pressure and, on occasion, by political expediency. This comes at a time when the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade is under strain from decades of under-resourcing and political neglect. As a result, DFAT struggles to balance consular work with other key priorities...

 

Lowy

The United States: The Hidden Actor in the Senkaku Islands, April 2013. Akira Kato, Visiting Scholar at the East-West Center in Washington, explains that "It is a little known fact that the privately-owned Kuba Island and Japanese state-owned Taisho Island, both part of the Senkaku Islands, are under the exclusive control of the US military."

 

EWC

South Korea: Give Nukes a Chance, March 2013. Denny Roy, Senior Research Fellow at the East-West Center, argues that "An ROK nuclear weapons capability would impose a meaningful penalty on the DPRK for its nuclear weapons program."

 

EWC

How Useful Is an Asian Currency Unit (ACU) Index for Surveillance in East Asia? March 2013. An Asian Currency Unit (ACU) index is constructed using an alternative procedure which minimizes a basket or portfolio of assets expressed in terms of national currencies. Using this estimated ACU index and an ACU Deviation Indicator, the main finding of this study based on the current trajectory of East Asian currencies relative to this regional ACU average or benchmark is that there is a formation of two contrasting groups of countries in the region—one a group of strong currencies and the other a group of weak currencies...

 

ADB

Pacific Economic Monitor, March 2013. This edition of the Pacific Economic Monitor discusses 2013 and 2014 GDP growth and inflation projections for ADB's Pacific developing member countries. The theme of the policy briefs included in this issue is energy in the Pacific. Findings: Economic growth in the Pacific moderated to 7.3% in 2012, from a post-crisis high of 8.3% recorded in the previous year. This regional trend was driven primarily by the performance of the region's larger, natural resource–extracting, economies. Growth is seen to moderate further in 2013, before picking up in 2014.

 

ADB

On the Determinants of Scholastic Performance in Five Asian Countries, March 2013. This paper takes an efficiency analysis perspective to analyze, on the basis of the data of the 2009 Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) survey, the determinants of scholastic performance in five Asian countries (Azerbaijan, Indonesia, Kazakhstan, the Kyrgyz Republic, and Thailand)...

 

ADB

A Practical Approach to International Monetary System Reform: Building Settlement Infrastructure for Regional Currencies, March 2013. The global financial crisis has once again stimulated discussions to reform the international financial architecture. This paper proposes that establishment of regional settlement currencies can contribute positively to this reform agenda.

 

ADB

Cost Recoverable Tariffs to Increase Access to Basic Services among Poor Households, March 2013. A contingent valuation survey from the Water Supply and Sanitation Project of the Asian Development Bank in Cebu, Philippines is used to show that tariff structures with a low one-time connection price and price differentiates based on wealth measures can result in a five-fold increase in the take-up of water services by poor households over the base tariff structure.

 

ADB

Firm Investment, Liquidity, and Bank Health: A Panel Study of Asian Firms in the 2000s, February 2013. This study examines the effects of a deterioration in bank health on the cash flow sensitivity of investment and cash holdings of firms.

 

ADB

Capital Controls: A Pragmatic Proposal, February 2013. To complement the IMF’s new framework and make it easier to operationalize, this paper proposes a pragmatic approach to the use of capital controls which leverages the G20 indicative guidelines in measuring excessive imbalances in order to simplify the IMF’s guidelines on the use of capital controls.

 

ADB

Operationalizing Experience: Donor Approaches to Service Delivery in Fragile States, February 2013. This study explores the different approaches to service delivery in fragile states by surveying donors' own evaluations of their existing fragile states policies.

 

ADB

APEC Human Capital Policies for Green Growth and Employment, March 2013. The purpose of this report is to summarize the HRDWG’s Human Capital Policies for Green Growth and Employment Project. This report is divided into three sections: (1) findings from an APEC survey conducted focused on Human Capital Policies and Practices for Green Growth and Employment, (2) a summary and overview of the APEC symposium that took place in Washington, DC on March 20-21, 2012, highlighting implications for developing APEC economies, and (3) appendices.

 

APEC

Potential Contribution of Small Pelagic Fish to Food Security within the Asia-Pacific Region, February 2013. This final report summarizes the study of the potential supply and use of small pelagic fish to tackle food security. The project took Indonesia and the Philippines, top producers of small pelagic fish in the region, as case study economies with Peru as the leading economy of the project.

 

APEC

International Seminar on Food Trade Safety to Prevent Avian Influenza, January 2013. This report provides an overall summary and the presentation papers presented the above seminar. The seminar emphasized some key points that attracting concerns of the government officials, the industries, the traders and the private sectors particularly in such aspects as the Avian Influenza and its sever impact, the measures taken for prevention and control, the Human Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza containment, food safety management measures, and combat of illegal trade etc.

 

APEC

Sustainable Land Management to Enhance Food Production of APEC Members, January 2013. The proceedings of the workshop should be particularly valuable in the context of APEC food security. The event brought together participants from public and private sectors working on sustainable land management related issues and allowed them to share their experiences and knowledge on its strategies, technologies and practices. The workshop outputs were expected to help find options and provide guidance in assessing present and future challenges to food security, to enhance our understansing on the causes of unsustainable food production, and address possible losses across entire food chain in each economy.

 

APEC

Final Report for APEC Low Carbon Model Town Project Phase 2, Feasibility Study for Samui Island, Thailand, November 2012. This report provides information of the Low Carbon Model Town Project (LCMT) Phase 2 in SAMUI Island low carbon town development project in Surat Thani province. The main purposes of LCMT Initiatives are to plan, develop and implement the concrete roadmap in order to lower the carbon emission from the selected town while the natural resources are effectively utilized and the economic growth still remains.

 

APEC

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

March, 2013

 

 

 

 

 

 

How Foreign Direct Investment Promotes Development: The Case of the People's Republic of China’s Inward and Outward FDI, February 2013. This paper gives a brief introduction to the PRC’s inward and outward FDI, including their determinants, motives, main characteristics, and impact on the PRC and host countries. Inward FDI contributes to the PRC’s economic growth and industry development, increases tax revenue, and improves labor quality. The contribution of inward FDI to gross domestic product averages around 3%–6%. At the same time, outward FDI improves the PRC’s dynamic efficiency, and helps the host countries with capital inflow and infrastructure improvement.

 

ADB

Financial Conditions Indexes for Asian Economies, January 2013. 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 included, allowing the constructed Financial Condition Index to capture important episodes in each economy’s financial history...

 

ADB

Economic Impact of Eurozone Sovereign Debt Crisis on Developing Asia, January 2013. The European Union (EU) has traditionally been an important economic partner for Asia. In addition to absorbing a significant share of the region’s exports, the EU has been a major source of foreign direct investment and other capital flows into the region. In light of such close economic linkages between the EU and Asia, the euro crisis will undoubtedly influence Asia’s short-term macroeconomic outlook. The key question, however, is how big the impact will be. This paper tries to answer this by examining both the trade and financial channels of crisis transmission...

 

ADB

Protestantism and Human Capital in Guatemala and the Republic of Korea, January 2013. Protestant missions from the United States entered the Republic of Korea and Guatemala at the same time (1884 and 1882, respectively). Yet, their impact on human capital has been divergent. The analysis presented in this paper supports the findings of Woodberry (2004, 2009, 2011) and Nunn (2009) in the case of the Republic of Korea...

 

ADB

Myanmar's Trade and its Potential, January 2013. The paper tabulates Myanmar's merchandise trade as reported by its partner countries, thereby circumventing the data constraints stemming from Myanmar's patchy trade records. It then estimates Myanmar’s export potential, based on the bilateral export patterns observed for six other countries in Southeast Asia. Against that benchmark and controlling for outliers, Myanmar is found to be trading at about 15% its potential...

 

ADB

Truth to Power: Japanese Media, International Media and 3.11 Reportage, March 2013

 

APJ

Human Rights, Memory and Reconciliation: Korea-Japan Relations, March 2013

 

APJ

The US Military, Green Energy, and the SPIDERS at Pearl Harbor, March 2013

 

APJ

China-Japan Territorial Conflicts and the US-Japan-China Relations in Historical and Contemporary Perspective, March 2013

 

APJ

The Aftermath of the Emperor-Organ Incident: the Tōdai Faculty of Law, February 2013

 

APJ

The Sihanouk Era: The King and I, February 2013

 

APJ

Straight Outta Ichimiya: The Appeal of a Rural Japanese Rapper, February 2013

 

APJ

Proposals for Japan and the ROK to Resolve the "Comfort Women" Issue: Creating trust and peace in light of international law, January 2013

 

APJ

Okinawa's Henoko was a “storage location” for nuclear weapons: published accounts, January 2013

 

APJ

ANYUAN: Mining China's Revolutionary Tradition, January 2013

 

APJ

China's Energy Industrial Revolution (Part 2), January 2013

 

APJ

Getting to Zero: Doing the Nuclear Math about Japan's Ageing Reactors, December 2012

 

APJ

Deconstructing Japan's Claim of Sovereignty over the Diaoyu/Senkaku Islands, December 2012

 

APJ

Power of the Korean Film Producer: Park Chung Hee's Forgotten Film Cartel of the 1960s Golden Decade and its Legacy, December 2012

 

APJ

China's Industrial Energy Revolution: Renewable targets just became even more demanding (Part 1), December 2012

 

APJ

Abe Days Are Here Again: Japan in the World, December 2012

 

APJ

Asia Bond Monitor, March 2013. The Asia Bond Monitor (ABM) reviews recent developments in East Asian local currency bond markets along with outlook, risks, and policy challenges. It covers the 10 members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) plus the People's Republic of China; Hong Kong, China; and the Republic of Korea. "The Asian Bond Monitor has become the definitive guide to the development and structure of the emerging East Asian bond markets. As such, it is essential reading for anyone involved or interested in this increasingly important and rapidly growing asset class." - Geoffrey Lunt, Senior Product Specialist, Asian Fixed Income, HSBC Global Asset Management (Hong Kong) Ltd.

 

ADB

Asian Economic Integration Monitor, March 2013. The Asian Economic Integration Monitor is a semiannual review of Asia’s regional economic cooperation and integration. This issue includes a special chapter - Multilateralizing Asian Regionalism: Approaches to Unraveling the Asian Noodle Bowl.

 

ADB

Emerging Geopolitical Trends and Security in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, the People's Republic of China, and India (ACI) Region, March 2013. This paper provides an assessment of the region's unfolding geopolitical transformation in recent years and asks if the regional structures in Asia can cope with it. The paper also explores the problems of integrating the two rising Asian powers, the PRC and India, into the structures of global governance. It concludes with a brief discussion on the strategic policy imperatives facing the ACI region.

 

ADB

Asian Development Bank Trade Finance Survey: Major Findings, March 2013. Findings from this survey suggest that trade finance gaps exist and need to be addressed because of the strong links between trade finance, business expansion, and job creation. It also underscores the importance of further study and collaboration among multilateral development banks, government, financial institutions, and companies to ensure maximum financial support to trade is available, given that the interlinked component parts of trade finance, business expansion, and jobs need coordination to create as much growth and poverty reduction as possible.

 

ADB

Managing Reforms for Development: Political Economy of Reforms and Policy-Based Lending Case Studies, Published 2013. The book's intended readers are development practitioners involved in the policy reform process. It aims to help them understand political economy factors that shape actual outcomes, and to simplify the complexities of policy reform and the loans and technical assistance that support such reform.

 

ADB

Economics of Reducing Greenhouse Gas Emissions in South Asia: Options and Costs, Published 2013. This report synthesizes the results of national studies on options and costs of reducing greenhouse gas emissions in five South Asia DMCs—Bangladesh, Bhutan, the Maldives, Nepal, and Sri Lanka.

 

ADB

Asian Water Development Outlook 2013: Measuring Water Security in Asia and the Pacific, Published 2013. This second edition of the Asian Water Development Outlook (AWDO) provides the first quantitative and comprehensive view of water security in the countries of Asia and the Pacific. By focusing on critical water issues, AWDO 2013 provides finance and planning leaders with recommendations on policy actions to improve water governance and guidance on investments to increase their country's water security.

 

ADB

WaterWealth? Investing in Basin Management in Asia and the Pacific, Published 2013. Drawing on a cross-section of 43 case studies prepared specially for this book, WaterWealth explains the challenges to improving water governance and management across Asia and the Pacific region. It illustrates many examples of new approaches and practices already being applied by basin managers to secure water for all.

 

ADB

Report to the President Office of Anticorruption and Integrity: Annual Report 2012, Published 2013. This publication highlights OAI’s efforts in 2012 to ensure that ADB’s development funds are used with regard to value for money for their intended purposes, and not usurped through fraudulent or corrupt practices.

 

ADB

Grading Europe in the Asia-Pacific: European Foreign Policy Scorecard 2013, February 2013. Jonas Parello-Plesner, Senior Policy Fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations, explains that "On issues of trade and economics, the EU is clearly showing that is has a strategy that it is implementing."

 

EWC

Regulatory Reform: Case Studies on Green Investments, February 2013. The report includes 12 case studies on the implementation of regulatory policies of selected APEC economies in order to draw lessons on regulatory reform, by analysing different experiences in formulating and implementing policies to improve energy efficiency and promote renewable energy technologies in particular sectors...

 

APEC

Training for Trainers on Intellectual Property Issues: Management and Commercialization, February 2013. This project addresses the issues of capacity building enhancing and experience sharing for IP-related sphere by holding ‘Training for trainers’. The workshop findings and the workshop proceedings are presented in this report...

 

APEC

SMEs' Participation in Global Production Chains, February 2013. Rising globalization and economic integration have enabled SMEs to increase their contributions to the region’s development through greater participation in global production chains (GPCs). More and more SMEs are engaged in activities that link up with multi-national corporations, providing intermediate goods or services that are used to build the final products. SMEs’ participation in GPCs yields substantial benefits; however, currently the level of SMEs participation in GPCs is still quite low...

 

APEC

Inadequate Regional Financial Safety Nets Reflect Complacency, March 2013. To the extent that financial contagion from the United States and the euro area crisis has occurred in Asia, this paper focuses on the importance of strengthening the regional financial safety nets. By conjecturing that efforts to prevent and manage a crisis are the essence of providing such safety nets, the author argues that efforts made by ASEAN+3 officials, especially in the provision of liquidity support during a crisis, are far from adequate...

 

ADB

Understanding Innovation in Production Networks in East Asia, March 2013. This paper explores the "black box" of innovation in the electronics production network in East Asia through a mapping exercise of technological capabilities and an econometric analysis of exporting in the People's Republic of China (PRC), Thailand, and the Philippines. Technology-based approaches to trade offer a plausible explanation for firm-level exporting behavior and complement the literature on production networks...

 

ADB

Supervision of Financial Market Infrastructures in Singapore, January 2013. The monograph describes MAS’ approach in supervising financial market infrastructures (“FMI”) in Singapore to foster their safety and efficiency. It updates and replaces the 2004 monograph on MAS’ Roles and Responsibilities in Relation to Securities Clearing and Settlement Systems in Singapore.  

MAS

Patterns of Free Trade Areas in Asia, Published 2013. The study identifies for policymakers how best to minimize the costs of FTAs while maximizing their benefits. It reexamines key trends and challenges in Asian FTAs and offers new information from analysis of FTAs, economic models, and firm surveys. This analysis supports strengthening business support for FTAs; rationalizing rules of origin and upgrading their administration; expanded coverage of agricultural and services trade; forging comprehensive "WTO-plus" agreements; and encouraging a region-wide FTA. The analysis suggests a bottom-up approach to global trade liberalization as a complement to WTO processes

 

EWC

The Elusive Nature of North Korean Reform, February 2013. The new leader of North Korea, Kim Jong-un, appears to be fostering a new political enthusiasm for reform. Is this all theatrics? Or does it signify a substantive policy shift? Reform is possible: Kim Jong-un may have the necessary resolve to successfully push reform; officials associated with the last reform attempt are still present and may truly be able to bring lessons learned to bear on a new reform effort; and, importantly, both China and South Korea are likely to be supportive of a sincere attempt at reform...

 

EWC

How Emerging Forms of Capitalism Are Changing the Global Economic Order, February 2013. The US model of free-market capitalism has been a dominant force in the post-communist world order, setting the agenda for economic governance and development. That supremacy, however, was severely tarnished by the 2008 global financial crisis, increasing the potential for new challenges from alternative economic models. Now, models of capitalism espousing more state involvement as practiced in Brazil, Russia, India, and, especially, in China are contenders on the political economic landscape of the world...

 

EWC

Reef and Relations: Is the Philippines-US Alliance Finally Maturing? February 2013. Julio S. Amador III, Foreign Affairs Research Specialist at the Foreign Service Institute of the Philippines, explains that the recent grounding in Filipino waters of the USS Guardian, "[s]hows just how delicate managing alliances can be, and the response by the Filipino and US governments also demonstrates a level of maturity in managing the issue."

 

EWC

Sri Lanka's Ongoing Shift to Authoritarianism, February 2013. Neil DeVotta, Associate Professor at Wake Forest University, discusses how "[S]ri Lanka is clearly moving towards an entrenched brand of political authoritarianism under Mahinda Rajapaksa and his cronies."

 

EWC

China's Intervention in the Myanmar-Kachin Peace Talks, February 2013. Yun Sun, Visiting Fellow with the John L. Thornton China Center at the Brookings Institution, explains that "[t]hese latest talks set a new precedent because of the central role that China played in the process and signify a major intervention by Beijing that is unique."

 

EWC

Impact of the ASEAN Economic Community on ASEAN Production Networks, February 2013. Empirical evidence suggests that the emergence of international production networks in East Asia results from market-driven forces such as vertical specialization and higher production costs in the home countries and institutional-led reasons such as free trade agreements. This paper examines two industries—autos and auto parts, and hard disk drives (HDDs)—to understand international production networks...

 

ADB

Hot Money Flows, Commodity Price Cycles, and Financial Repression in the US and the People's Republic of China: The Consequences of Near Zero US Interest Rates, January 2013. R. McKinnon and Z. Liu explain why near zero US interest rates are bad for the US and the rest of the world...

 

ADB

The Threat of Financial Contagion to Emerging Asia's Local Bond Markets: Spillovers from Global Crises, January 2013. I. J. Azis, et al look at shock and volatility spillovers from mature bond markets into select Asian local currency bond markets and discuss implications for the monitoring and policy coordination...

 

ADB

Critical Review of East Asia - South America Trade, January 2013. S. Hamanaka and A. Tafgar examine whether trade between East Asia and South America is a general phenomenon, a country-specific, or a commodity-specific issue, and whether increased trade is due to diversification, price effects, and/or quantity effects...

 

ADB

A New Regime of SME Finance in Emerging Asia: Empowering Growth-Oriented SMEs to Build Resilient National Economies, December 2012. S. Shinozaki reviews possible financing modalities to improve small- and medium-scale enterprise (SME) access to finance, considering Asia's bank-centered financial system...

 

ADB

Chinese Southern Diaspora Studies, Volume 5, 2011-2012: Chinese in Singapore

 

CSDS/
ANU

APEC Cross Border Privacy Rules System Implementation: Peru, February 2013. This Report reviews the data privacy framework in Peru and considers an approach for an Accountability Agent and the Enforcement Authority that would be consistent with Peru’s domestic legal regime and its historic approach to regulation.

 

APEC

Transport, Energy and Environmental Benefits of Intermodal Freight Strategies, Final Report, February 2013. This report provides a summary of the project findings. The project investigated the benefits of using intermodal approaches to the movement of freight in urban settings as a means of improving energy efficiency and reducing the emission of greenhouse gases.

 

APEC

Access to Trade and Growth of Women's SMEs in APEC Developing Economies, February 2013. Research for this project aimed to highlight the complex array of factors affecting women in business through a mix of quantitative and qualitative methods. A quantitative survey targeted SME owners in domestic and exporting firms, half of whom were women. Qualitative methods included focus group discussions, semi-structured interviews and case studies.

 

APEC

Enhanced Capacity Building for Food Safety Risk Assessment in Asia-Pacific, February 2013. This report summarizes the research work under the above APEC project which, amongst others, aims to share the experiences and lessons in the field of food safety risk assessment among APEC and non-APEC economies.

 

APEC

Economic Impact of Submarine Cable Disruptions, February 2013. The present study and the economic impact model serve to fulfill the goals of the APEC Supply Chain Connectivity Framework Action Plan, resolved by the APEC member economies, which contains under its Chokepoint 7 the protection of submarine cables.

 

APEC

APEC Energy Demand and Supply Outlook, February 2013 covering Australia, Brunei Darussalam, Canada, Chile, China, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Japan, Korea, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, Peru Philippines, Russia, Singapore, Chinese Taipei, Thailand, United States and Viet Nam.

 

APEC

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

February, 2013

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hong Kong: High Frequency Macroeconomic Forecasts Current Quarter Model: 2013Q2, April 2013. The worst time of European debt crisis might have been over. The recovery of the US economy seems gathering steam. The low interest rate environment will likely continue through 2015. China's economy is expected to rebound a bit. Under these conditions, real GDP is forecast to increase by 3.5 to 4.3 percent for 2013. Consumer inflation is expected to be mild and the labour market stable in the upcoming quarters...

 

HKU

Promoting Democracy in Myanmar: Political Party Capacity Building, February 2013. Democratization in Myanmar started officially in March 2011. The President and the speakers of the parliament have often urged the population to actively participate in this historic period in Myanmar. In order to support democracy, there are many important stakeholders: the government, parliament, political parties, civil society and media. This paper highlights the importance of the political parties in the country and their role as the creators of the future of the country...

 

ISDP

Europe and China in Africa: Common Interests and/or Different Approaches? January 2013. Emerging economies are increasingly looking to secure access to resources abroad. The most visible of these efforts can be seen in the expansion of Chinese activities in Africa. The initial responses were often critical of Chinese activities. They were seen as a threat to European and other Western interests. Such viewpoints often ignored the African perspectives and the similarly dubious practices accompanying Western interventions in Africa. This paper seeks to overcome this dichotomy and to contribute to the growing number of analyses on the subject that take a more nuanced approach and critically explore different kinds of interventions...

 

ISDP

China's Risk Equation: Using Military Forces in International Humanitarian Assistance and Disaster Relief Activities, January 2013. China’s first use of its military forces to undertake international humanitarian assistance and disaster relief (HADR) mission was in 2002. Since then it has been involved in 12 missions involving several hundred personnel. Given that HADR missions are usually viewed as a benign use of military forces and generate benefits for both the assisting state as well as the affected state, it would seem self evident that it is in China’s best interest to rapidly expand its HADR involvement. However, this simple analysis fails to consider that military involvement in HADR can have significant down-side risks. For example, tensions could increase if Chinese HADR efforts become characterized as cynical advancement of its maritime power projection agenda, or seen as camouflage for acquiring more expeditionary capabilities...

 

ISDP

Chinese Official Negotiators: Mindset and Practice, December 2012. Four types of Chinese official negotiators are identified in terms of their negotiating mindset and practice: the avoiding negotiator, the accommodative negotiator, the persuading negotiator and the problem-solving negotiators. The evolution is explained from four perspectives: traditional Confucian culture, revolutionary culture, Chinese bureaucracy and international conventions. It is shown that with the fading of revolutionary culture, the resurgence of traditional culture and the deepening of the course of opening up, Chinese negotiators will tend to be more of the problem-solving type, who conduct negotiation in order to advance both China’s national interests and the interests of international community.

 

ISDP

China's Foreign Policy Dilemma, February 2013. In this Analysis, Linda Jakobson writes foreign policy will not be a top priority of China's new leaders because they must focus on immense domestic problems. Therefore Chinese foreign policy can be expected to be reactive. This may have serious consequences because of the potentially explosive nature of two of China's most pressing foreign policy challenges: how to decrease tensions with Japan and with Southeast Asian states over diverse territorial claims in the East and South China Seas...

 

Lowy

Economic Stability and Choice of Exchange Rate Regimes, February 2013. This paper emphasizes the importance of Europe's structural problems and governance as the cause of the current euro area crisis. The euro may have led to bubbles, but member economies were not free of trouble before the euro. Many members were losing competitiveness and in need of removing structural rigidities. If anything, the euro was expected to encourage structural reform, by taking away the easy choice of monetary and fiscal expansion...

 

ADB

Financing Development Cooperation in Northeast Asia, February 2013. The paper finds that total infrastructure investment needs for Northeast Asia excluding Japan and the Republic of Korea (in transport, energy, information and communication technology, and the environment) could be $63 billion per year over the next 10 years. Of this total, $13 billion would have to be mobilized every year from external sources. The paper considers three options to fund these needs in addition to traditional financing by bilateral and multilateral agencies ...

 

ADB

APEC Smart City Industrial Technology Cooperation Forum, Final Report, February 2013. This report presents the findings of the above forum and APEC project, “Building Smart Cites of APEC Economies”. One of project's objectives is to create a framework for cooperation between APEC economies’ smart technology industry such as smart healthcare, smart ...

 

APEC

Promotion of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy in Low Carbon Model Town of APEC through Distributed Energy Source- Identification of Potential, Challenges and Solutions, January 2013. This report summarizes the findings of the above project which aimed to study and identify the potential, challenges and solutions for application of distributed energy sources in promoting energy efficiency and renewable energy in low carbon model towns of APEC.

 

APEC

Energy Performance Evaluation Methodologies and Practices in APEC Economies, February 2013. In the study, a general energy performance evaluation methodology for industrial enterprises will be developed based on summary and analysis on energy performance evaluation methodologies and practices in APEC economies, to facilitate the implementation of EnMS, establish a long-term energy ...

 

APEC

Automated Transport Management Systems Implementation for Optimizing Logistics within the Asia-Pacific with an Emphasis on ITS and GNSS Application, Published 2013. This study provides a general overview of the transportation and freight flow management and monitoring systems (SMM) implementation and operation experiences in APEC economies.

 

APEC

APEC Workshop on Food Security: Innovative Approaches for the Implementation of APEC Food Security Action Plan, Published 2012. The key objective of the Workshop was to sustain and improve efficiency in the development of the current agricultural sector and safeguard agricultural trade in support of Food Security.

 

APEC

APEC Unconventional Natural Gas Census, January 2013. The overall report is provided in two parts. The purpose of Part I of our APEC Unconventional Gas Census report is to: (1) document information on surveys of unconventional gas resources completed, underway or planned by the various APEC economies, including ...

 

APEC

Best Practices and Perspectives of Energy-Efficiency Technologies for Utilization of Low Rank Coal within APEC Economies, Published 2013. The current status of energy-efficiency technologies for utilization of low rank coal within APEC economies especially in China was analyzed, and general guidelines recommendations for the technological development were put forth based on the concept of circular economy, advocating large scale utilization of low rank coal through upgrading and integrated functional unit operations and processes.

 

APEC

APEC Energy Statistical Analysis Tool, Published 2012. The tool supports retrieval and analysis of data and provides various viewing options that have been prepared in consultation with member economies in the APEC region.

 

APEC

Production Networks, Profits, and Innovative Activity: Evidence from Malaysia and Thailand, February 2013. This paper uses firm-level data from the two most active ASEAN countries in production networks (Thailand and Malaysia) and examines the effect of participating in production networks on profits and technological capabilities of firms. The empirical results show that participating in production networks raises profits. The evidence further suggests that participation in production networks is also positively correlated with technology upgrading, measured by a technological capabilities index.

 

ADB

Cambodia: Rapid Growth with Institutional Constraints, January 2013. This paper examines Cambodia’s socioeconomic development since the early 1990s peace settlement. Some key challenges are also highlighted. These include rising inequality, uneven spatial development, weak institutions, and high levels of corruption. Looking forward, strengthening supply side capabilities, broadening the benefits of growth, and developing stronger institutions and property rights will be key factors in guaranteeing Cambodia's progress.

 

ADB

Inclusive Growth and Gender Inequality in Asia's Labour Markets, December 2012. This study examines gender inequality in labor markets across Asia and the Pacific, with a focus on the structural drivers of women’s labor force participation...

 

ADB

Is Growth in Asia and the Pacific Inclusive? December 2012. The study finds that growth of 11 Asian economies studied—Armenia, Bangladesh, Cambodia, India, Indonesia, Kazakhstan, Nepal, Pakistan, the Philippines, Timor-Leste, and Viet Nam—has become more inclusive. Evidence of inclusive growth is also found in a number of Central Asian economies.

 

ADB

Risk-On/Risk-Off, Capital Flows, Leverage, and Safe Assets, January 2013. This paper describes the international flow of funds associated with calm and volatile global equity markets. During calm periods, portfolio investment by real money and leveraged investors in advanced countries flows into emerging markets, leading to an asymmetric asset swap (risky emerging market assets against safe reserve currency assets) and leveraging up by emerging market central banks. In declining and volatile global equity markets, these flows reverse, and, contrary to some claims, emerging market central banks draw down reserves substantially. In effect emerging market central banks then release safe assets from their reserves, supplying safe havens to global investors.

 

ADB

Investing in Resilience: Ensuring a Disaster-Resistant Future, Published 2013. This report offers an approach and ideas for reflection, inviting readers to consider how we can ensure that the actions that we know are required to strengthen resilience are actually taken. It is primarily aimed at investors in the public sphere, namely governments and their development partners...

 

ADB

Gender and Urban Poverty in South Asia: Proceedings Report of the 2012 Subregional Workshop, Published 2013. This report presents a synthesis of knowledge, experiences, good practices, and recommendations shared at the forum with the aim of assisting ADB and its partner agencies in the planning of urban development projects to facilitate gender- and socially inclusive outcomes and reduce poverty in South Asia.

 

ADB

Handbook on Poverty and Social Analysis: A Working Document, Published 2012. This handbook is intended to help professionals involved in programming, preparing, and implementing activities financed by the Asian Development Bank (ADB) to effectively address the poverty and social dimensions of ADB’s operations aligned with Strategy 2020’s inclusive growth agenda, thereby enhancing ADB’s efforts to reduce poverty in Asia and the Pacific.

 

ADB

Tourism in Yap and Micronesia: Will China Run the Show? February 2013. Archaeologist at the Federated States of Micronesia National Archives, Culture, and Historic Preservation Office, explains that "Whether China or the United States will have a greater influence over this region has yet to be determined, but the process of competition is underway now."

 

EWC

Japanese Politics: "Season Three", January 2013. Hirofumi Kawaguchi, Ph.D. Candidate at the University of Tokyo, explains that "The LDP's landslide victory does not mean that Japanese voters enthusiastically support the LDP."

 

EWC

Bumpy Road to the ASEAN Human Rights Declaration, January 2013. Katherine G. Southwick, International Law and Development Consultant recently based in the Philippines, explains that for ASEAN "Progress will be slow, but the establishment of human rights institutions is an irreversible process, through which member states will be held to account."

 

EWC

Can the CCP Really Afford to Play the Nationalist Card? January 2013. Sheng Ding, Associate Professor of Political Science at Bloomsburg University of Pennsylvania, explains that "The difference today is that when the CCP played the nationalist card in previous diplomatic disputes, Beijing always talked tough but acted carefully. This time however, Beijing is talking tough and acting dangerously."

 

EWC

Navigating a Changing World Economy: ASEAN, the People's Republic of China, and India, January 2013. Most projections envision continued rapid growth in the ASEAN members, the People's Republic of China, and India over the next two decades. By 2030, they could quadruple their output, virtually eliminate extreme poverty, and dramatically transform the lives of their more than 3 billion citizens. The impact will be felt across the world. This study—a background paper to an Asian Development Bank report—used a Computable General Equilibrium model to examine the likely effects of the region's growth on trade, resources and the environment, as well as the implications of the many risks the region's growth path faces from its internal and external environment.

 

ADB

A ZEN Approach to Post-2015: Addressing the Range of Perspectives Across Asia and the Pacific, January 2013. The “ZEN” framework stresses the distinct challenges of achieving zero extreme poverty (Z), setting country-specific “Epsilon” benchmarks for broader development challenges (E), and promoting environmental sustainability both within and across borders (N)...

 

ADB

Overlooked Opportunity: Tradable Business Services, Developing Asia, and Growth, January 2013. The empirical analysis in this paper is less than satisfying, but is a result of the relative paucity of empirical research on the service sector. A major contributing factor to this lack of research is the lack of data on the service sector...

 

ADB

Economic Growth, Comparative Advantage, and Gender Differences in Schooling Outcomes: Evidence from the Birthweight Differences of Chinese Twins, December 2012. This paper estimates the gender-specific effects of birthweight on a variety of schooling and labor market outcomes. A unique feature of the study is to use micro evidence on the relationship between birthweight - an early measure of nutritional advantage - and schooling outcomes to make inferences about the relationships between specific aspects of economic growth and schooling investments and returns...

 

ADB

The Service Sector in Asia: Is It an Engine of Growth? December 2012. Based on the analysis of 12 Asian economies, the study finds that the service sector already contributed substantially to the region’s growth in the past. Further, services labor productivity grew at a healthy pace in most of the region. Overall, the analysis provides substantial cause for optimism about the role of the service sector as an engine of growth in Asia.

 

ADB

Economy Reports for APEC Economies on demographics, policies & ICT applications for people with Special Needs (Seniors and People with Disabilities), January 2013. The study is a part of APEC Project “ICT applications for people with special needs (seniors and people with disabilities)”. The main goal of this project was to create an effective platform for knowledge exchange on innovation for assistive ICT and applications for the elderly and disabled.

 

APEC

APEC Capacity Building Model for Training the Trainers, January 2013. The report outlines nine main competency areas in which training should be provided and eight different trainer types to whom this training should be focused on. In essence, the training to be provided is “training for trainers”, that is, competencies are created in groups for professionals who are in close contact with the elderly, disabled and others with special needs on a regular basis.

 

APEC

Implementing the APEC Anti-Corruption Code of Conduct for Business, December 2012. This project report documents the processes, results, lessons, and recommendations that emerged from the ACT 02 2011A project’s two main components: the Baseline Study and the Forum on the Implementation of the APEC Anti-Corruption Code of Conduct for Business.

 

APEC

Renewable Energy Promotion Policies, December 2012. The purpose of this report is to direct the experience and knowledge obtained from the application of policies for promoting renewable energy in the world to address the developing economies in APEC.

 

APEC

Consolidated Site Visit Report: Performance-Based Navigation Regulatory Review and Evaluation Program, December 2012. This report documents the outcomes of the two site visits in two member economies: Malaysia and the Philippines, where a team of experts on Performance-Based Navigation worked to share safety oversight training and best practices.

 

APEC

Strengthening Health Security in APEC, September 2012 (Published 2013). This project final report summarizes the outcomes of project's work, “International Symposium for Rural Health Human Resource Development in Asia-Pacific Region”.

 

APEC

APEC Outcomes and Outlook 2012/2013. In APEC Indonesia 2013, APEC meets under the theme “Resilient Asia-Pacific, Engine of Global Growth” and focuses on Attaining the Bogor Goals; Creating Sustainable Growth with Equity; and Promoting Connectivity. This publication also looks back at the outcomes of APEC Russia 2012 and the 20th APEC Economic Leaders' Meeting at Vladivostok, Russia.

 

APEC

APEC at a Glance, 2013. The Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum was established in 1989 to capitalise on the growing interdependence of Asia-Pacific economies. This handy publication lists APEC's goals, modus operandi and member economies.

 

APEC

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

January, 2013

 

 

 

 

 

 

Enhancing the Effectiveness of CMIM and AMRO: Selected Immediate Challenges and Tasks, January 2013. The Chiang Mai Initiative Multilateralisation (CMIM) and the ASEAN+3 Macroeconomic Research Office (AMRO), established in March 2010 and May 2011, respectively, have made substantial headway. But despite the rapid progress, a series of fundamental questions have been raised, particularly about the size of the CMIM facility. Although CMIM funding was doubled to $240 billion, effective since May 2012, the swap amount has frequently been criticized as insufficient. Another fundamental issue that still needs to be agreed upon is the CMIM's role and how it fits in among existing regional and global financing facilities. AMRO's surveillance work is seen as vital to the overall success of the CMIM in regional financial cooperation. The primary task of this paper is to suggest possible areas in which the effectiveness of the CMIM and AMRO may be increased, despite constraints and limitations.

 

ADB

International Financial Reforms: Capital Standards, Resolution Regimes and Supervisory Colleges, and their Effect on Emerging Markets, Januray 2013. This paper focuses on the relevance to emerging economies of three major financial reforms following the global financial crisis of 2007–2009: (1) the improved capital requirements intended to reduce the risk of bank failure ("Basel III"), (2) the improved recovery and resolution regimes for global banks, and (3) the development of supervisory colleges of cross-border financial institutions to improve supervisory cooperation and convergence. The paper also addresses the implications of these regulatory reforms for Asian emerging markets.

 

ADB

From a Centralized to a Decentralized Global Economic Architecture: An Overview, January 2013. This paper argues that calls for a New Bretton Woods system in the aftermath of the global economic crisis—similar to the remarkable 1944 Bretton Woods conference that led to the establishment of various international economic institutions—are unlikely to be answered. The likely scenario is that the centralized architecture from before the global economic crisis will evolve toward a more decentralized and multilayered global architecture where regional institutions are linked together to a "senior" global organization in a complementary manner by rules and regulations. The paper also highlights the new regional institutions that Asia needs to establish to contribute to this evolving global economic architecture.

 

ADB

Asian Development Review, Vol. 29, No. 2, 2012 (Full Report):   ADB

Asian Development Review, Vol. 29, No. 1, 2012 (Full Report):   ADB

More Security for Rising China, Less for Others? January 2013. In the face of a rising China, the most fundamental concern of Asia Pacific governments is how a stronger China affects their own security. While China could achieve a reasonable amount of security and prosperity playing within the current international rules, there is reason to expect China to use its expanding economic, military, and diplomatic influence to press neighboring governments to conform to its wishes on political issues. Based on a historical perception that a China-centered regional order is the region's natural destiny, China sees itself as the rightful leader of the region. And despite pragmatic forces restraining aggressive behavior by China, there is immense nationalistic pressure that pushes the top leadership toward more confrontational foreign policies. An important aspect of the strategic impact of China's rise depends on whether its policies violate international norms and threaten the security of other countries. Regional security will be defined in part by the willingness and ability of the region to stand up to China's demands.

 

EWC

Japan's Election: Watching the Wrong Hawks, January 2013. Crystal Pryor, recent Japan Studies Visiting Fellow at the East-West Center in Washington, explains that "First, while Abe has been termed a 'hawk' or 'nationalist' in Western media outlets, these terms carry different connotations in American discourse than they do in Japan."

 

EWC

Dietary Shift and Diet Quality in India: An Analysis Based on 50th, 61st and 66th Rounds of NSS, 2012. An important finding is slowing down of dietary transition in the more recent sub-period 2004-09. Clues relate to weakening or strengthening of food price, expenditure and lifestyle effects over time... A common finding that food diversity is associated with better quality diet and higher intakes of nutrients is not corroborated. While there is a reduction in calorie intake, there are increases in protein and fat intakes...

 

ASARC

Performance of the Service Sector in the Republic of Korea, December 2012. There is a widespread perception that the Republic of Korea’s service sector lags behind its dynamic world-class manufacturing sector. The study empirically analyzes the past performance of the Republic of Korea’s service sector in order to assess its prospects as an engine of growth. It resoundingly confirms the conventional wisdom of an underperforming service sector. In light of the Republic of Korea’s high income and development level, the poor performance of modern services is of particular concern. The report identifies a number of factors underlying the poor performance, and sets forth policy recommendations for addressing them. Overall, the Republic of Korea faces a challenging but navigable road ahead in developing a high value-added service sector...

 

ADB

Developing the Service Sector as Engine of Growth for Asia: An Overview, November 2012. The analysis indicates that services are already an important source of output, growth, and jobs in the region. However, its productivity greatly lags that of the advanced economies, which implies ample room for further growth...

 

ADB

Transactions: A New Look at Service Sector Foreign Direct Investment in Asia, November 2012. This paper presents new micro-level data consisting of individual greenfield investment projects and mergers and acquisitions as a source for detailed analysis of service sector cross-border investment flows among the Asian Development Bank (ADB) regional members. The new transactional foreign direct investment (FDI) data are methodologically distinct from traditional BPM5-compliant FDI data but found to yield generally comparable aggregates, when compared with the latest available International Monetary Fund (IMF) data from the Comprehensive Direct Investment Survey for the ADB regional members...

 

ADB

Assessing Factors Affecting M&As versus Greenfield FDI in Emerging Countries, November 2012. This paper employs a system generalized method of moments estimator for the panel data consisting of 40 emerging countries for the period 1990–2009. The results suggest that there exist a strong and significant global and regional influence in both types of FDI flows to an emerging country. M&A appears to be more sensitive to external factors, both global and regional effects are about twice stronger for M&A than for Greenfield FDI. The results also suggest that countryspecific factors matter a lot for FDI flows both in the form of M&A and Greenfield FDI, pointing to the importance of government roles in helping stabilize FDI flows to emerging countries. This paper also offers empirical evidence which is consistent with the phenomenon of a fire-sale FDI during the period of financial crisis. Additional evidence using extensive and intensive margins of M&A sales suggest that the fire-sale does not necessarily imply an increase in the number of deals, but it may reflect the sales of big firms during the crisis...

 

ADB

Is Timor-Leste's Growth Inclusive? November 2012. This study examines the first decade of the restoration of independence to assess if Timor-Leste’s economic growth has been inclusive. Opportunity is found to have been provided to a larger share of the population, with those on lower as well as higher living standards enjoying more opportunity. Inequality in opportunity is generally in decline. It concludes that inclusive growth has been achieved. To maintain progress, it will be important to (i) prioritize support for the poorest Timorese, and (ii) achieve improvements in some lagging sectors, notably roads, water, and sanitation...

 

ADB

Adoption of CFLs and Electrical Lighting Usage in Pakistan, October 2012. The findings indicate that policies that educate households on the lifespan of CFLs may prove effective in increasing CFL adoption. However, the savings in electricity usage from CFL adoption is less than expected. We find that 27%–41% of potential energy savings are offset through both enlarged bulb capacity and prolonged lighting time. This behavioral response to the energy efficiency improvement therefore diminishes some of the benefits of promoting CFLs as a means to reduce energy consumption and conserve the environment...

 

ADB

The Informal Sector and Informal Employment in Bangladesh, Published 2012. Based on a labor force survey conducted in 2010, informal employment in Bangladesh is estimated at about 89% of the total number of jobs in the labor market. It is more prevalent in the rural areas than in urban areas. Women are also more likely to be under informal employment arrangements. The informal sector accounted for more than 40% of the total gross value added of Bangladesh in 2010, with the highest contributions in agriculture, fishery, trade, and industries where capitalization is relatively lower.

 

ADB

Hong Kong: High Frequency Macroeconomic Forecasts Current Quarter Model: 2013Q1, January 2013. The worst time of European debt crisis might have been over. The recovery of the US economy seems gathering steam. The low interest rate environment will likely continue through 2015. China's economy is expected to rebound a bit. Under these conditions, real GDP is forecast to increase by 3.5 to 4.3 percent for 2013. Consumer inflation is expected to be mild and the labour market stable in the upcoming quarters...

 

HKU

Closer US-India Relations Benefit the United States and Mississippi, December 2012. Senator Roger Wicker, who represents Mississippi in the US Senate, explains that "The dynamic and productive US-India relationship continues to grow from strength to strength, and there is no doubt that this partnership will play a major role in US foreign policy in the years ahead. This is good news for the United States and for the State of Mississippi."

 

EWC

The Collective Influence of Smaller States in the US-China Security Dilemme, December 2012. Ja Ian Chong, Asia Studies Visiting Fellow at the East-West Center in Washington, explains that "Any ratcheting down of Sino-US security dilemmas in the Asia-Pacific is a task that ultimately falls to Washington and Beijing, but regional states should avoid fueling tensions."

 

EWC

India's Military Modernization and the Changing US-China Power Balance, December 2012. Satoru Nagao, Research Fellow at the Ocean Policy Research Foundation based in Tokyo, Japan, explains that "Upon closer examination, it is clear that India will be an influential security partner for the United States in shaping the US-China power balance throughout Asia, but especially in Southeast Asia."

 

EWC

US-ASEAN Relations: Advances Made But Challenges Remain, December 2012. Prashanth Parameswaran, Ph.D Candidate in International Affairs at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, explains that "Taking into consideration the ebbs and flows perceived by Asian states of US commitment to the region in the past, the sustainability challenge will probably continue to preoccupy US and ASEAN leaders for the rest of the Obama second term, and beyond."

 

EWC

The Passing of Sihanouk: Monarchic Manipulation and the Search for Autonomy in the Kingdom of Cambodia, December 2012

 

APJ

Distributed Power and Incentives in Post-Fukushima Japan, December 2012

 

APJ

Hmong Studies Journal, Vol. 13, Issues 1 & 2, 2012  

HSJ

Strengthening Human Resource Management System of SMEs for Facilitating Successful Trade and Investment in APEC, Case Book, December 2012.

 

APEC

Mathematical Modeling Course in Mathematics Curriculim: Some Best Practices in APEC Economies, December 2012. This project aims to identify ways in which Mathematical Modeling curriculum are being defined, developed, and practiced in the APEC region. This document is the results of a workshop on “Promoting best practices on Mathematical Modeling Course in APEC economies”, in October 22-23, 2012, at Institut Teknologi Bandung, Indonesia.

 

APEC

Sharing best practices for seamless intermodal cargo movement. Phase 1. Physical infrastructure, November 2012. The project at its Phase One specifically is aimed at addressing Chokepoint 2: Inefficient or inadequate transport infrastructure and lack of cross border physical linkages (e.g. roads, bridges) and Chokepoint 6: underdeveloped multi-modal transport capabilities; inefficient air, land, and multimodal connectivity. The project is aimed at trade facilitation through improvement of infrastructure and innovative means to share best practices among for APEC economies on proper infrastructure use.

 

APEC

Microgrids for Local Energy Supply to Remote Areas and Islands in APEC Region, November 2012. This volume brings together most essential contributions from the workshop on Microgrids for Local Energy Supply to Remote Areas and Islands in APEC Region that was held on October 15-17, 2012 as the core activity of the project. The objective that guided the project team in preparation for this release was to provide the reader with basic insights on microgrid technology development and, more importantly, outline a menu of options for microgrid pilot project development with references to some success stories.

 

APEC

The Study of Addressing Challenges of AMI Deployment in APEC, November 2012

 

APEC

Japan's Education Services Imports: Branch Campus or Subsidiary Campus? December 2012. S. Hamanaka reviews the development of regulatory status of services trade in tertiary education services, especially education through oversea campuses, and considers the policy implications on issues regarding the regulation of services industry. Read more...

 

ADB

Environmental Change and Migration: Implications for Australia, December 2012. In the Pacific Islands region, climate change and natural disasters could displace potentially thousands of people in coming years. A significant number of these people could end up as environmental migrants to Australia. In this Lowy Institute Analysis, Dr Khalid Koser argues that Australia needs a national policy framework on environmental migration to manage the new flow of migrants in ways that maximise the benefits, but also minimise the costs to the country, including any increase in irregular migration...

 

Lowy

Assessment of Prospective Impact of Fruits and Vegetables Research at the Industry Level in the Philippines: the Case of the ACIAR-PCAARRD Horticulture Project, November 2012

 

PIDS

Unfair Trade Practices in the Philippines, November 2012

 

PIDS

ASEAN+1 FTAs and the Global Supply Chain in East Asia: the Case of the Philippine Automotive and Electronics Sectors, October 2012

 

PIDS

Rules of Origin in ASEAN+1 FTAs and the Value Chain in East Asia, October 2012

 

PIDS

Impacts of Natural Disasters on Agriculture, Food Security, and Natural Resources and Environment in the Philippines, October 2012

 

PIDS

Philippines 2007 National Transfer Accounts: Consumption, Income, and Intergenerational Reallocation of Resources - Revised Estimates, October 2012

 

PIDS

Implications of Philippine Trends in Education Financing and Projected Change in School-age Population on Education Expenditures by Income Group: Using National Transfer Accounts Results, October 2012

 

PIDS

Philippines 2007 National Transfer Accounts: Financing Consumption and Lifecycle Deficit by Income Group, October 2012

 

PIDS

Philippines 2007 National Transfer Accounts: Consumption, Labor Income, and Lifecycle Deficit by Income Group, October 2012

 

PIDS

Filipino Elderly Living Arrangements, Work Activity, and Labor Income as Old-age Support, October 2012

 

PIDS