Apec S Regional Economic Integration Agenda And The Evolution Of Economic Integration In The Asia Pacific Region

This book is the first in a major new series examining Global Economic Institutions and contrasts regional economic integration in the Asia Pacific Region and in Europe. In the Asia Pacific Region, regionalism is developing by means of "open regionalism", which is different from the regionalism which has developed in Europe, through the construction of a single European Market and Monetary Union within the European Union. In the light of this contrast, a number of important contemporary policy questions are considered.

Assesses the political feasibility of the Free Trade Area of the Asia-Pacific (FTAAP) proposal and looks at alternative modalities for achieving free trade and investment in the Asia-Pacific.

Abstract: The authors show in this paper that increasing the transparency of the trading environment can be an important complement to traditional liberalization of tariff and non-tariff barriers. Our definition of transparency is grounded in a transaction cost analysis. The authors focus on two dimensions of transparency: predictability (reducing the cost of uncertainty) and simplification (reducing information costs). Using the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) member economies as a case study, the authors construct indices of importer and exporter transparency for the region from a wide range of sources. Our results from a gravity model suggest that improving trade-related transparency in APEC could hold significant benefits by raising intra-APEC trade by proximately USD 148 billion or 7.5 pecent of baseline trade in the region.

This report, published by the OECD's International Futures Programme in co-operation with the Bob Hawke Prime Ministerial Centre in Australia, aims to stimulate informed debate about the main integration issues facing the Asia-Pacific region in the ...

Relationships and alignments among the nations of the world’s most populous and productive region, the Asia Pacific, are in flux. Current global political, economic and security uncertainty, heightened by 9/11 and the subsequent War on Terror, has fuelled a reassessment by many Asia Pacific nations about the structure and form of future economic and political cooperation and development. Featuring contributions from some of the most eminent and influential economists and political scientists in the Asia Pacific region, this book explores the forces reshaping the Asia Pacific economic order, and where these changes may lead. Focusing on the origins of the shift towards policy driven integration, the book examines what new structures may eventually emerge on both sides of the Pacific, the ways in which this shift will affect the progress of economic integration and how cross-Pacific relations will therefore be affected.

Economic integration has been a focus of Asia-Pacific affairs for the last quarter century. To support and strengthen economic ties, governments in the region have pursued an array of integration initiatives, from the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum launched in 1989 to bilateral and regional trade negotiations currently underway. APEC has been the most successful tool of regional trade and investment integration thus far and has the potential to continue bridging differences between various integration efforts in the region. This report, with input from a wide variety of regional and topical experts, posits that developing a common, high-standard policy approach to value chains could pull together the various integration efforts to the substantial economic benefit of the entire region. The report offers eight recommendations for a broad-based APEC initiative building on existing work in the region on supply chains and connectivity.