Asia Regional Integration Center

Stephan Haggard surveys regional economic cooperation in the Asia-Pacific in light of the new literature on international institutions. The paper outlines the political sources of well-known features of regional institutions and considers several proposals for deepening cooperation. Read more.

Hsiao Chink Tang, Philip Liu, and Eddie Cheung investigate the effectiveness of countercyclical fiscal policy in five ASEAN countries of Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, and Thailand. Through a structural vector autoregression (VAR) model, government spending is found to have weak and largely insignificant impact on output, while taxes are found to have outcomes contrary to conventional theory.  Read more.

The paper aims to examine economic interdependence and balancing power politics, and their mixed implications for regional institution building in East Asia based on the concept of common security. By pointing out the gap between the violent conflict prediction and the stability and prosperity reality following the end of the Cold War, the paper gives analysis to the factors affecting the security relations in the region, including (i) the role of the US, (ii) the rise of the PRC, (iii) ASEAN‘s efforts at regional cooperation, the (iv) the PRC–Japan rivalry.  The author concludes that economic interdependence and regional cooperation in Asia have constrained a power struggle from spiraling out of control, while open regionalism has become a reasonable approach to regional institution building. Finally, the paper makes policy recommendations with respect to principles and steps in moving to a new regional security order.

Governments and monetary authorities in emerging East Asia need to cooperate more on exchange rates and other policies to turn the swift post-crisis recovery into more balanced, long- term growth. The report notes that the weaker outlook for the global economy coupled with the phasing out of fiscal and monetary stimulus within the region means economic growth should moderate next year following emerging Asia's robust recovery in 2010.  Read the news release and highlights. Download the report.

Mari Elka Pangestu, Minister of Trade, Indonesia, will talk about Asia's trade policy and its future challenges. See program. Confirm with Liza Cruz.

London School of Economics and Political Sciences' Simon Hix assesses the convergence of national preferences, establishment of equitable systems of representation, and institutional scenarios for Asian economic union.  Read more.

Why is Asia lagging behind other regions in creating regional judicial institutions? What lessons from elsewhere could be valuable to Asian regional economic integration? This paper shows that Asian states are not unusually averse to refer inter-state disputes to global judicial institutions. Moreover, Asian states are not unique in their reluctance to resolve regional inter-state disputes through judicial means. The most valuable lesson for Asia from experiences elsewhere is the role that regional courts can play in resolving disputes between administrative agencies and private parties about the implementation of international law. Read more.

In this paper, Yin Hua Mai, Phillip Adams, Peter Dixon and Jayant Menon examine the impact that an awakening People’s Republic of China (PRC) is likely to have on the growth and terms of trade of its neighbours. Using a multi-country model, they find that PRC’s technological convergence raises the world prices for mining products and lowers those for manufactures. Overall, the effects are relatively small, however. Therefore, although an awakening PRC will have a positive impact on the region, it is unlikely to make a dramatic entrance. Read more.