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This article examines the impact of the ASEAN Free Trade Area (AFTA) on Korean exports to ASEAN countries by using the system generalized method of moments. The data covered 15 sectors according to their relative importance in Korean exports and spanned from 1980 to 2006. The estimated results suggest that Korea’s exports were diverted to ASEAN members as a result of the AFTA formation. In 5 of the 15 sectors, the AFTA exerted a significant negative effect on Korean exports to ASEAN countries, but for the remaining 9, the results were mixed and statistically insignificant. The results also indicate that the sectoral approach yields more robust and clear-cut results than the aggregate one.

Among various distinctive formulations that have been developed simultaneously in East Asia as of 2009, this paper selected three major paths, ASEAN+3, ASEAN+6 and APEC, to quantitatively examine the economic impacts of Asian regionalization with the CGE model. This paper confirmed previous findings such as the magnitude of economic impact being proportional to the size of membership and the existence of trade diversion effect within all trade blocs. The subsequent KORUS and Korea-EU FTA imposition upon the built CGE base models further verified the effects of hub-and-spoke-ism in East Asia. Jointly, the simulation results implied that the economic impacts of a trade arrangement heavily depend on the subject economy’s reliance on trade with the participating states. It was also found that the impacts were directly proportional to the accrued trade balance of the subject spoke country with both the hub state and the hub-destination. This could have been exaggerated as the scope of this study was limited to East Asia where KORUS FTA was found to be more influential than Korea-EU FTA due to its exceptionally high reliance on the US. On the course of this research to verify the aforementioned findings, however, both GTAP 6 and 7 were adopted, and hence, the economic impacts of China’s accession to the WTO in the global trade system were also empirically proven.

World trade has been increasing rapidly and much faster than world output. This study analyzes the trade structures of major dynamic East Asian countries as well as regional subgroups such as ASEAN members and Northeast Asian countries. Emphasis will be on the complementarities that would enhance integration among them through international trade. In addition, potential trade levels for each combination of East Asian countries are estimated by applying the gravity model of trade to the trade flows of21 APEC members, as a reference group. It is estimated to have significant potentiality by regional subgroup, ASEAN or Northeast Asia, and not between the two regional subgroups. However, the potential integration between East Asian countries in different regional subgroups is more significant by considering complementarities in trade compared with the results from the basic gravity model. To enhance economic cooperation between East Asian countries, expanding relationships such as inter-industry trade in natural resources trade and industrial goods between the regional subgroups needs to occur. They should also utilize complementary relationships from intra-industry trade in industrial goods such as electric and electronic equipment, related parts and accessories. And they should focus on the implementation of trade facilitation measures based on global standards.

The study aims to investigate the profitability and marketability efficiency scores and determinants of 899 listed manufacturers in six Southeast Asian countries: Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam.

The study employs the bootstrap two-stage data envelopment analysis (DEA) to measure profitability and marketability efficiencies of Southeast Asian manufacturers. The study uses the panel-data fractional regression model (FRM), which is an advantageous method that is suitable for the fractional response variables and applicable to time-differing heterogeneity, to investigate the determinants of Southeast Asian manufacturers' efficiencies.

The study demonstrates that listed manufacturers in Indonesia and Singapore achieve the highest average profitability and marketability efficiencies among the six Southeast Asian countries. The study also shows that the cash ratio, institutional ownership, headcount and technology-application positively affect Southeast Asian-listed manufacturers' profitability and marketability efficiencies at different levels of significance.

The current study is the first assessment of the listed manufacturers' profitability and marketability efficiencies in Southeast Asian countries, which consist of different market levels (developed, emerging and frontier markets). The study is a reference source for regional investors, manufacturers' managers and governments to make appropriate decisions in investing, managing and enhancing the development of the Southeast Asian manufacturing sector.

This paper aims to identify Thailand’s realistic export opportunities (REOs) in the ASEAN+3 countries (i.e. ASEAN, Greater China, Japan and South Korea), which together constitute an economically dynamic region and a strategic export destination for Thailand. Furthermore, the paper seeks to determine the extent to which Thailand already has a share in ASEAN+3 countries and where new opportunities lie. This allows the formulation of appropriate export promotion strategies for Thailand.

The methodology used is a decision support model (DSM) which uses an extensive data-filtering system to systematically screen and eliminate less-promising product–country combinations to ultimately reveal high-potential REOs. Product–country combinations are screened on the basis of country risk; macro-economic country performance; market potential in terms of import growth and import market size; and market access conditions, including market concentration and the existence of trade barriers. The thus narrowed-down REOs are categorised according to Thailand’s relative market share in, and the characteristics of, the identified import markets.

The study reveals that the ASEAN+3 countries account for about 40 per cent of the total potential export value of Thailand’s REOs in the world, with China leading the way (12.45 per cent), followed by Japan (8.56 per cent) and South Korea (6.23 per cent). However, Thailand has a relatively small or intermediately small market share in the majority of these REOs, pointing to the need for more offensive and exploratory export promotion strategies.

The ASEAN+3 countries – given that they are an abundant source of REOs for Thailand and are in Thailand’s “backyard” – should receive more focused attention and resources in government export promotion efforts. The recent launch of the ASEAN Economic Community and the proposed establishment of an East Asia Free Trade Area lend weight to the idea of Thailand adopting a strong regional focus in its export activities.

The insights derived from the study are valuable for export promotion officials, industry representatives and practising exporters alike, as they constitute an easy-to-digest snapshot of high-potential REOs for Thailand in the ASEAN+3 region. This makes for more efficient planning and prioritising of export development activities, and a more streamlined approach to resource allocation.

Export promotion shows diminishing returns and requires sustainable strategies and interventions. The value in this paper lies in its description of an innovative market selection tool, the DSM, which is able to process and filter high volumes of information and arrive at a shortlist of high-potential REOs for Thailand in the ASEAN+3 countries. The paper represents a concise case study of the DSM in practice, which should be of particular interest to export promotion agencies, industry associations and both new and more established exporting countries.

The authors provide a comprehensive study on systemic risk of the banking sectors in the ASEAN-6 countries. In particular, they investigate the systemic risk dynamics and determinants of 49 listed banks in the region over the 2000–2018 period.

The authors employ the market-based SRISK measure of Brownlees and Engle (2017) to investigate the systemic risk of the ASEAN-6's banking sectors.

The authors find that the regional systemic risk fluctuates significantly and currently at par or higher level than that of the recent global financial crisis. Systemic risk is generally associated with banks that have bigger size, more traditional business models, lower quality in their loan portfolios, less profitable and with lower market-to-book values. However, these relationships vary significantly between ASEAN countries.

The research focuses on the systemic risk of ASEAN-6 countries. Therefore, the research results may lack generalizability to other countries.

The authors’ empirical evidence advocates the use of capital surcharges on the systemically important financial institutions. Although the region has been pushing to higher financial integration in recent years, the authors encourage the regional regulators to account for the idiosyncratic characteristics of their banking sectors in designing effective macroprudential policy to contain systemic risk.

This paper provides the first study on the systemic risk of the ASEAN-6 region. The empirical evidence on the drivers of systemic risk would be of interest to the regional regulators.

This paper examines the influence Japan’s participation in the TPP negotiations will have on the course of subsequent East Asian economic integration, and mainly from the perspective of the three Northeast Asian countries of Japan, China and the ROK. In the first half, as a premise thereto, we first bring together the development of the FTA policies of China, the ROK and Japan, and then the connections with East Asian economic integration.

The major economies of East Asia, namely Japan and the Four Asian Tigers, have always prioritized the WTO-led multilateral trade liberalization over other trade arrangements primarily due to their unique economic structure with a high dependency on the world’s major markets such as the US. Along the same line, even the huge blow from the Asian Financial Crisis in 1997 only managed to trigger a few initiatives to aide East Asian regional integration while being led by different centering bodies, APEC and ASEAN. These dispersed efforts naturally resulted in no realistically significant achievements in the light of ‘integration’ until the present day. Under these circumstances, East Asia now faces a second opportunity to achieve its economic independence from the extra-regional influences via regionalization: the 2009 Global Credit Crunch. This paper hereupon critically reviews the actual progress and the likely impacts of the current global recession on the East Asian region.

Unlimited quantitative easing (QE) is one of the monetary policies used to stimulate the economy during the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. This policy has affected the financial markets worldwide. This empirical research aims at studying the dependence among stock markets before and after unlimited QE announcements.

The copula-based GARCH (1,1) and minimum spanning tree models are used in this study to analyze 14 series of stock market data, on 6 ASEAN and 8 other countries outside the region. The data are divided into two periods to compare the differences in dependence.

The findings show changes in dependence among the volatility of daily returns in 14 stock markets during each period. After the unlimited QE announcement, the upper tail dependence became more apparent, while the role of the lower tail dependence was reduced. The minimum spanning tree can show the close relationships between stock markets, indicating changes in the connection network after the announcement.

This study allows the dependency to be compared between stock market volatility before and after the announcement of unlimited QE during the COVID-19 pandemic. Moreover, the study fills the literature gap by combining the copula-based GARCH and the minimum spanning tree models to analyze and reveal the systemic network of the relationships.

This paper aims to review the case for improved (supra‐national) regional social and labour policies in principle, assess the extent to which existing regional associations of governments and regional organizations are actually developing effective regional labour policies in different sub‐regions of Europe, Latin America, Africa and Asia, and finally explore the driving forces behind their development and suggest how they might be further enhanced.

The paper compares the emergence of regional policies concerning labour rights and migrant workers' rights across regions. A sample of more than 15 regional arrangements are then ranked on the basis of their commitment in these areas. Finally, correlations between these rankings and different indicators of (real) regional interdependence are looked at.

The paper shows that regional socio‐economic policies are gaining importance in different world regions, although speeds are varied and generally low. It is difficult, however, to find strong correlations with indicators of regional interdependence such as trade or migration.

The paper presents one of the first systematic accounts of the development of regional socio‐economic policies in different world regions. It shows at the same time that huge opportunities for new policy initiatives exist in this area.