Economics, Education, Finance, Governance, Infrastructure
Economics, Education, Finance
Economics, Education, Finance
Information and Communications Technology, Trade
Economics, Energy, Environment, Governance, Infrastructure
Gender, Health
Economics, Finance, Trade
Economics, Finance, Governance
Economics, Education, Finance
Economics, Finance, Governance
Kick-start private infrastructure with future tax-sharing bonds
Everybody from President Trump to the Global Infrastructure Forum is trying to think of innovative ways to attract long-term private and institutional investors to pay for the huge and largely unmet demand for new highways, railways, and dams. Promising ideas, including guarantees or gap funding, the concessional blending of finance, and bankability enhancements, have been tried but are not enough to convince overseas pension schemes or high net worth individuals to invest their idling funds in worthwhile projects, especially in emerging economies with untried issuers (Regan, 2017). Read more.
Monetary policy spillovers in emerging Asia
For a number of years, the central banks of the major advanced economies have pursued historically unprecedented ultra-low interest rate policies and negative interest rate policies. Facing the zero lower bound problem, they have also implemented various asset purchase programs, known as “quantitative easing,” with the aim of reducing long-term interest rates. There has been growing evidence that advanced countries’ unconventional monetary policies (UMPs) have caused significant spillovers to the financial markets of emerging market economies (EMEs). Read more.
Asia’s financial connections with the rest of the world: Changing patterns
As economies in East Asia and the Pacific (EAP) have developed, they have also become important in international financial transactions, both as sources and destinations of cross-border bank lending, foreign direct investment (FDI), and portfolio investments. But, as we document in a new paper (Didier, Llovet, and Schmukler 2017), the composition of these financial connections has been changing in recent years on at least two fronts: (i) the partners with which EAP countries interact, and (ii) the type of financial transactions conducted. Read more.
Digital trade needs more coordination, leadership
Electronic documentation in trade has made impressive recent gains in Asia and the Pacific. Up to 38% of banks in the region report progress in digitizing their operations in 2015, and more than a third of countries had partially or fully implemented electronic customs systems by the end of last year. Read more.
Electrifying emerging ASEAN through off-grid distributed renewable energy systems
Some 134 million people in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) region do not have access to electricity (IEA and ERIA, 2013). At the end of 2015, the ASEAN Community declared that the lack of power and energy access could threaten the region’s economic growth and its economic transition. Read more.
Economic impacts of obesity in the Republic of Korea
Obesity is a state of excessive body fat accumulation and is difficult to measure. Body mass index (BMI)—defined as weight in kilograms divided by the square of height in meters—has been used traditionally for its simplicity and the availability of data. Although shortcomings of using BMI have been acknowledged, its correlation with body fat percentage and its sensitivity in diagnosing obesity based on the body fat percentage have been verified for Korean people (Chung et al. 2016). Read more.
How does exchange rate volatility affect value added and gross trade?
The rise of Donald Trump has reignited the debate on the link between exchange rates and trade. The Trump administration has blamed the exchange rate policies of the People’s Republic of China (PRC), Japan, and Germany for the current account deficit in the United States (US), and the president’s Twitter posts have put many major currencies on a roller coaster ride. Now, policy makers around the globe are concerned about the negative impact of exchange rate volatility on world trade. Read more.
Escaping the middle income trap: Innovate or perish
The “middle income trap” captures the situation where a middle income country can no longer compete internationally in standardized, labor-intensive commodities because wages are relatively too high, and it can also not compete in higher value added activities on a broad enough scale because productivity is relatively too low. The result is slow growth, stagnant or falling wages, and a growing informal economy. Read more.
Hometown investment trust funds: A sustainable solution for financing green energy projects
The Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster was an energy accident at the Fukushima No. 1 Nuclear Power Plant in Fukushima, Japan, initiated primarily by the tsunami that followed the Tohoku earthquake on 11 March 2011 and led to a nuclear shutdown in the country. Japan substituted the loss of nuclear power with fossil fuels, such as oil, gas, and coal, and became more dependent on their imports and consumption. Read more.
Assessing the BOJ’s yield curve control policy
The Bank of Japan (BOJ) announced in September last year that it would be switching the focus of its quantitative easing program from monetary base targeting to controlling the shape of the yield curve (Bank of Japan, 2016). A brief comparison of the two frameworks is as follows. The previous monetary easing framework, Quantitative and Qualitative Monetary Easing (QQE) with a Negative Interest Rate, set out three policy dimensions: quantity, quality, and interest rates. Read more.
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