Costs and Benefits of Economic Integration in Asia

Abstract

In line with its goal to foster economic growth and cooperation in the region, the Asian Development Bank, with Robert J. Barro and Jong-Wha Lee, have collected a formidable group of scholars to tackle the issues related to these questions.Costs and Benefits of Economic Integration in Asiaoffers quantifiable results from the field's top economists on cooperation and integration in the areas of trade, investment, and finance in Asia. Appealing to scholars, policymakers, and interested general readers, the book is an authoritative diagnosis of initiatives seeking to promote regional economic integration. It examines two broad divisions of cooperation and integration: monetary and financial, and trade and investment. Specific enquiries include such topics as comparisons to other regions such as Eastern Europe and Latin America, the effects of regional free trade agreements on overall trade and welfare, the distribution of benefits of unevenly distributed resource wealth among the region's economies, the possibility and desirability of an East Asian currency union, business cycle synchronization and its relationship with inflation targeting regime and trade, pre-World War I Asian monetary systems, the computation of the extent of foreign and domestic content in a country's exports, and many more.

After financial disaster, the world's economy is changing drastically, and Asia will play a pivotal role in how these changes occur.Costs and Benefits of Economic Integration in Asiais an essential reference on the controversy and consensus on economic integration, and how it will influence individual Asian countries, the region as a whole, and the world, for decades to come.