Institutions for Enhancing Economic Policy Performance

institutions, development, regulation

East Asian Economic Integration and its Impact on Future Growth

Two propositions appear to be gaining wide currency, given the revealed preference for preferential trade agreements (PTAs) in the East Asian region and elsewhere. The first is that economic integration is a good way to promote economic growth. The second is that PTAs, particularly ones that go beyond goods trade, are an effective way to promote economic integration. Yet both propositions are empirical questions. In this paper, a partial evaluation of the evidence suggests caution is called for. Current PTAs appear to be doing little to remove the important impediments to growth in the region. Far greater income gains would come from comprehensive reform of nondiscriminatory impediments to competition, as part of a thorough-going program of unilateral domestic regulatory reform. It may be time to rethink East Asian economic integration as a policy priority, or at least review the way in which it might be pursued.East Asia, economic integration, trade, Growth

Challenges and Opportunities for Trade and Financial Integration in Asia and the Pacific

The aim of this chapter is to explore whether there are principles that can be brought to bear in negotiating the services and investment provisions of trade agreements, and which can help to ensure that the partial reforms achieved under those agreements add to, rather than detract from economic well-being. These principles might be seen as the services and investment equivalents of the "top-down" principle for tariff reform. It is not intended to go as far as developing a negotiating modality for services or investment, as that would be premature. However, the principles developed here could be used by individual countries on a voluntary basis when undertaking negotiations in services and investment.negotiate, service, investment, trade agreement, tariff reform, liberalization

Institutions for enhancing economic policy performance

development, institutions, finance

Will bank interest rate deregulation jeopardize economic growth? A case study of South Korea

The first purpose of this paper is to demonstrate, as a theoretical.proposition, that elimination of controls on bank interest rates would not necessarily lead to a decline in output in those sectors which were previously able to obtain cheap bank credit, The efficiency gains obtained by eliminating these controls need not, therefore, come at the expense of economic growth (or whatever other benefits were presumed to accrue by fostering particular sectors using credit controls). The key to this result lies in a proper understanding of the way in which credit price control and quantity rationing in the regulated sector affects resource allocation, given the existence of a dual, unregulated financial sector. The second purpose of this paper is to present quantitative estimates of the macroeconomic and sectoral effects of the removal of bank interest rate controls in South Korea. In many ways the Korean experience is tailor-made for a study of this kind.

Demands for real and financial assets in Botswana

Traditionally, asset demands are derived as a solution to the individual's or household's problem of allocating wealth among various real and financial alternatives. The demand for each asset depends on the own real rate of return, but also on the real rates of return to alternative assets. The sensitivity to own and cross rates captures the speculative element in portfolio allocation, the motive usually being to maximise end-of-period wealth. Typically, asset demands also depend on income, reflecting the transactions motive for asset holding. These determinants are generally the same, whether the asset choice is seen to take place under conditions of risk or certainty.

Barriers to Trade in Health and Financial Services in ASEAN

The purpose of this paper is to give background information on current barriers to trade in four services sectors in the ASEAN region. The information was summarized in a companion paper (Dee 2009), which also laid out concrete proposals for achieving the liberalization targets for these sectors from the ASEAN Economic Blueprint. The four key services are medical services (medical, dental and paramedical services), health services (hospital, medical laboratory and ambulance services), banking services and insurance services. The medical and health sectors are priority sectors under the ASEAN Economic Community Blueprint. This paper describes the survey instruments that were used to collect information about current regulatory policy settings in these sectors in each of the ten ASEAN economies, gives a detailed presentation of results, and compares the results to other recent surveys of services trade barriers in these sectors. In the case of healthcare, there are few comparable cross-country studies, and none that have looked at the evolution of services trade barriers over time. In the case of banking and insurance, by contrast, there have been several previous studies, two of which have looked at how services trade barriers in these sectors have changed over time. In this paper, the most recent information on barriers to financial services trade in ASEAN is also made comparable to that in these other recent studies, so that the current situation in ASEAN can be compared with the recent situation in a number of other developed and developing countries. The findings of the other recent studies on the patterns of financial services liberalization over time are also summarized, as this can give insights into likely patterns of liberalization in ASEAN.Health services, Financial services, Trade barriers, ASEAN.

The economy-wide effects of further trade reforms in Tunisia's services sectors

The purpose of this paper is to benchmark Tunisia against other emerging economies in terms of the regulatory barriers affecting particular services sectors, and to assess the economy-wide effects of further liberalizing these services trade restrictions, compared with reducing the dispersion in barriers to its merchandise trade. On the basis of a rather restricted sample of services sectors, partial regulatory reform would yield gains roughly equivalent to full unilateral reform of manufacturing tariffs, but roughly one-tenth the gains from full bilateral reform of border protection in agriculture with the European Union. The adjustment costs associated with these services trade reforms would be minimal. The paper identifies the reasons why the gains from these services reforms are relatively small, and argues that a wider set of reforms could provide win-win outcomes and even fewer adjustment costs. By contrast, the gains in agriculture and manufacturing tend to come at the expense of domestic output in the reforming sectors -- the gains are greater, but so too are the adjustment costs.Transport Economics Policy&Planning,Banks&Banking Reform,Emerging Markets,Economic Theory&Research,Markets and Market Access

Multilateral liberalisation of services trade

This paper compares estimates of the gains from eliminating barriers to trade in services with those from eliminating post-Uruguay barriers remaining in the traditional areas of agriculture and manufacturing. It uses a model that incorporates a bilateral treatment of foreign direct investment, one of the key vehicles by which services are traded internationally.The model is a version of GTAP with foreign direct investment, known as FTAP.multilateral liberalisation - services trade - Uruguay Round - trade barriers - foreign direct investment - GTAP - FTAP