Chart of the Week | MAY 19, 2023
INCREASING EXTERNAL DEBT OF ASEAN COUNTRIES
ASEAN-10 countries broadly experienced loss of net external wealth in 2021, with the loss being the smallest for major oil producers such as Indonesia, Malaysia, and Thailand.
Featured Research
How US interest rates affect emerging economies
It has been long suspected, studied, and proven that a country’s domestic monetary condition is influenced by global financial cycles. The US Federal Reserve raised its policy rate ten consecutive times between March 2022 and May 2023, bringing the US interest rate to the highest level in over a decade. Higher US interest rate typically…
Read More
Taking stock of the Sri Lankan economy and its intra-provincial development
For any economy, balanced regional development is as essential as overall national growth. This makes regular assessment of regional disparities, an important exercise for an evolving policy framework. The island nation of Sri Lanka is divided into nine provinces and 25 districts. While much attention has been given to study and address inter-provincial disparities, intra-provincial…
Read More
Cross-Border Data Flows: Navigating the Evolving Policy Landscape and Challenges in Compliance
There is no doubt that data has become a critical production factor, alongside the other usual factors such as labor, capital, and land. However, data has several unique characteristics. For instance, it’s non-rivalrous, meaning it can be used by multiple entities simultaneously without diminishing its value. Also, data is non-excludable, meaning it is difficult to…
Read More
Are neighborhood visits skewed? The case of Singapore
Physical mobility patterns have the potential to offer insights into asymmetries of movement. And this matters for our understanding of segregation. Using GPS records for Singapore, research by ACI studies how mismatches in wealth and ethnic mix relate to daily neighborhood visits. In other words, authors quantify how neighborhood visits are affected by mismatches in…
Read More
India’s 2020 FDI restrictions: What it meant for China’s outward greenfield FDI
In times of uncertainty, such as the Covid-19 pandemic, policymakers are compelled to make high-risk and quick decisions that may go against their broader policy mandates. At the onset of the pandemic, the Indian government mandated a clearance requirement for new FDI projects from land-border sharing economies. It was widely understood that these new FDI…
Read More
Nepal’s Digitalisation Journey: Experiences and Challenges in Digital Transformation and the Future Ahead
ACI collaborated with NIPoRe to host a webinar titled Nepal’s Digitalisation Journey: Experiences and Challenges in Digital Transformation and the Future Ahead on February 23th, 2023. Prof Paul Cheung, Director of Asia Competitiveness Institute (ACI) delivered his welcome remarks and highlighted the importance of digitalisation and the speed of Nepal’s digitalisation. He also shared how…
Read More
A tiered approach to measuring digital competitiveness of Asian Economies
As digital transformations continue to happen at breakneck speeds around the world, the rise of the digital economy has become impossible to ignore. How long can you survive at work, school, or even otherwise without access to the internet? The value of the digital economy in our lives rests in answer to the question. As…
Read More
What can online job postings say about the labor market dynamics in Singapore?
Online job postings complement official labor market data well and, therefore, reflect the skills and qualifications in demand in a timelier manner. A study by ACI uses job posting data from JobTech, Singapore’s leading AI talent intelligence startup, to monitor and understand local labor market dynamics. The data constitute nearly the entire universe of job…
Read More
The Debate on International Trade and Wage Inequality Continues: The Case of Mexican Firms and Competition from China
International trade has been rightfully touted as an engine of economic growth, but its impact on the labor market might differ among different economies. Over the last few decades, China’s unsurpassable growth numbers have caught the world’s attention. The labor-intensive economy of China has been the focus of numerous international trade studies, with the impact…
Read More
How difficult is it to balance purpose with profit? Know it from Singapore’s B Corps
Paradoxically, in today’s times of increased sensitivity to environmental issues, businesses with clear loyalty to sustainability are subject to more scepticism than ordinary corporations. A study by ACI surveyed 12 (out of 19) B corporations in Singapore to understand the challenges faced by these companies, and strategies employed to cope with them. The Certified B…
Read More
Investment, Infrastructure, ICT in Jakarta: Emergence from Covid-19 and Development Outlook
Jakarta’s massive infrastructure development and growing digital sector kept the economic slump at bay during the covid-19 pandemic. A recent study by ACI tracks Jakarta’s emergence from the pandemic and its socioeconomic progress vis-à-vis the province’s medium-term development plan (RPJMD). It finds that the province’s digital sector showed resilience amidst the economic contraction induced by…
Read More
From digital to real economies: Lessons from Singapore’s Digital Economy Agreements
As digitalization tightens its grip on the world economy, countries have sought to enhance and deepen their digital cooperation. Proliferating digital trade and the limited scope of digital commitments in the trade agreements paved the way for Digital Economy Agreements (DEA). DEAs are inter-governmental treaties that “establish digital trade rules and allow for digital economy…
Read More
Taking stock of Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDCs): Asia and beyond
ACI hosted a webinar CBDC and the Digital Economy: Insights for Asian Emerging Markets on September 28th, 2022. Dr. Taojun Xie was the moderator, Prof. Yiping Huang and Dr. Ammu George were the presenters. On the panel were industry experts – Her Excellency Dr. Serey Chea, Dr. Taimur Baig, and Dr. Xuan Wang. Dr. Xie…
Read More
Indonesia’s Riau Islands turn the corner: A deep dive into its post-pandemic emergence and growth
An essential determinant of a region’s resilience to the pandemic is its socioeconomic composition. A recent study by ACI evaluates Indonesia’s Riau Islands’ emergence from the pandemic by tracking the province’s socioeconomic development vis-à-vis the provincial government’s Regional Medium-Term Development Plan (RPJMD). It finds that Riau Islands “emerged relatively unscathed due to its reliance on…
Read More
Book Launch | Annual Competitiveness Analysis and Socio-Economic Development of Indonesian Sub-National Economies
A year into the COVID-19 pandemic, Indonesia’s economy shows signs of recovery in 2021: The country has seen a 3.2 percent annual GDP growth this year, compared to a contraction of 2.1 percent a year earlier. The 2021 growth is mainly driven by the Information and Communication Technology (ICT) and wholesale and retail trade sectors.…
Read More
ACI PERSPECTIVES 