Economics, Politics and Public Policy in East Asia and the Pacific
Author: Andrew Elek, ANU
The global economy has another serious bout of the jitters around the deep problems in Europe and uncertain recovery in the United States.
The IMF meetings in Washington may have temporarily allayed the effects of the collapse in global confidence but there remain big challenges for the G20 in developing a response to the threat of the world’s slipping back into recession.
Authors: Nabeel A Mancheri and Shantanu S, NIAS
The India–Brazil–South Africa Dialogue Forum (IBSA), founded by the Brasilia Declaration in 2003, serves as a coordinating mechanism between its member states.
The Declaration cited three major reasons as the basis for closer cooperation: shared democratic credentials, developing country status and desire to act on a global scale. Read more…
Author: Peter Drysdale, Editor, EAF
In East Asia, as elsewhere in the world, the risks that we continue to face in recovery from the global financial crisis, economically and politically, are a consequence not only of failure in national governance but also in the architecture of international governance, including regional architecture.
Failures that frustrated a coherent East Asian and international response to the big problems of the day (including payments imbalances, financial market reform, trade and exchange rate issues) in their global context. Read more…
Author: Wendy Dobson, University of Toronto
With no clear leader and few strong incentives for deep integration, Asian cooperation for the foreseeable future is likely to be intergovernmental, with little pooling of sovereignty to create supranational institutions or agree common rules and disciplines.
As Asia’s weight in the world economy grows, however, its interests will also be served by a strong commitment to global institutions. Read more…
Author: Eko NM Saputro
One of the priority areas for regional cooperation at the East Asia Summit (EAS) has been finance. At the last EAS Leaders’ summit in Hanoi last year this area was given special attention along with education, energy, disaster management and avian flu prevention.
The Leaders’ focus on financial cooperation was both timely and relevant in the current uncertain economic climate. Read more…
Author: Hitoshi Tanaka, Japan Center for International Exchange
The balance of power in East Asia is shifting, presenting new risks to regional stability.
In order to mitigate these risks and maintain and strengthen regional peace, stability, and prosperity, it is critical that regional cooperation be consolidated. Read more…
Author: Maria Wihardja, CSIS
The world is biting its fingernails in anticipation of developments in the global economy and geopolitical landscape.
The Doha Round is on life support, and the OPEC talks on 8 June to increase the world’s oil supply have broken down. Read more…
Author: Arvind Subramanian, PIIE
With the United States throwing its support behind Christine Lagarde for the post of Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund, the search for a new chief is all over.
Although the French magistrate’s continuing investigating of Lagarde’s role in the Bernard Tapie affair is unfortunate. Read more…
Author: Joel Rathus, ANU
In early May, the ASEAN +3 Finance Ministers met in Hanoi and reached an agreement on two important issues in the development of the Chiang Mai Initiative (CMI).
Firstly, they appointed Wei Benhua to be the first director of the ASEAN+3 Macroeconomic Research Office (AMRO). Read more…
Author: Anil Kumar Kanungo, Indian Institute of Foreign Trade
The story of succession at the IMF is well underway.
French Finance Minister Christine Lagarde seems well positioned to beat Mexico’s central bank governor Agustin Carstens to the job. Read more…
Author: Jonathan D. Ostry, IMF
The debate over how to manage capital flows to emerging market economies ebbs and flows, much like the flows themselves.
But, it’s a hot topic in the news again for good reason. Short-term fluctuations in capital flows are occurring against the backdrop of a structural trend increase. Investors have woken up to the higher risk-adjusted returns these economies are likely to continue to offer. Read more…
Author: Eko Saputro, Deakin University
The 14th ASEAN+3 Finance Minister’s Meeting (AFMM+3) in Hanoi, Vietnam, has welcomed the establishment of the ASEAN+3 Macroeconomic Research Office (AMRO), whose job it will be to maintain surveillance of the Chiang Mai Initiative Multilateralisation (CMIM), and support its full operation.
As regional self-help mechanism, the CMIM aims to provide liquidity support arrangement in response to short-term liquidity difficulty during crisis, and also becomes a supplement for the existing international support fund facility. Read more…
Author: Amitav Acharya, Asia-Pacific Foundation of Canada and American University
It is bad enough that Canada is absent in Asia. But what’s worse is that nobody in Asia seems to care.
In a recent op-ed, Joseph Caron (Canada’s former ambassador to China and Japan and former High Commissioner to India) and David Emerson (former Canadian Foreign Affairs and International Trade Minister) wrote: ‘Canada remains on the fringes of [Asia’s] remarkable transformation, whether diplomatic engagement, trade, foreign investment or educational or cultural exchanges. We risk being left behind.’
Author: Jeffrey Frankel, Harvard University
It is time for the Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund to come from an emerging market country.
But that has been said often before. Whining about the injustice of the 65-year duopoly under which the IMF MD comes from Europe and the World Bank President comes from the US won’t change anything. Read more…
Authors: Richard Baldwin and Simon Evenett, Vox EU
The world trade system is at an historical fork: WTO members must make a choice.
Key decisions will be taken in discussions that start with the 29th April 2011 meeting of the Doha Round’s steering committee and that will continue for the coming weeks (assuming that this Friday’s meeting avoids an acrimonious breakdown). Read more…