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 […]

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Chart of the Week May 19, 2023: Increasing External Debt of ASEAN Countries

Summary: 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. The gap in net external wealth between the richer and the poorer countries further widened, as the poorest nations in the region (Myanmar and Cambodia) experienced steep […]

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Chart of the Week May 5, 2023: Urban-Rural Digital Divide in Indonesia

Summary: Indonesia’s digital economy is growing at an impressive rate. According to a report by Google, Temasek, and Bain & Company, Indonesia’s internet economy is expected to reach $124 billion by 2025, making it one of the fastest-growing economies in the world. Despite rapid internet penetration, Indonesia continues to experience a significant digital divide between […]

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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 […]

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Chart of the Week April 21, 2023: Blockchain’s broadening applications

Summary: The creation of bitcoin introduced the blockchain technology more than a decade ago. In the early days when the blockchain technology was just made known to the world, there was a plethora of potential applications proposed by blockchain enthusiasts. Fourteen years on, we look at how the blockchain has expanded its applications through the […]

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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 […]

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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 […]

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Chart of the Week March 24, 2023: Rising Prominence of “Made in Vietnam”

Summary: While it seems that China will continue as the world’s super factory and leading exporter, Vietnam is increasingly exporting products similar in structure to Chinese exports. Vietnam is emerging as an attractive option for international firms as a cheaper and better manufacturer than China.[1],[2] Using the United Nations Comtrade database from 2004 – 2021, […]

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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 […]

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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 […]

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