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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.

There is an ongoing debate in the ASEAN Economic Community (AEC) Blueprint 2015 concerning the skilled labour migration policy regimes. This review aims to systematise the free flow of skilled labour migration policies in Cambodia, Lao PDR, Myanmar and Vietnam (CLMV) countries.

This review utilised a qualitative systematic in peer-reviewed journals for the period 2015–2019. The initial search identified 28,874 articles. Of those articles, 10,612 articles were screened, 738 articles were checked, 150 articles were selected and 18 articles met the criteria. Data were analysed using thematic synthesis (e.g. coding, categorisation, synthesis and summarisation).

The review suggested that free movement from CLMV countries is the cause of the mass exodus of unskilled migration to high-income countries. The review found that the free flow of migration policy in the AEC Blueprint 2015 is associated with illegal, unauthorised and unskilled workers in the host country.

A systematic review is qualitative in nature, in which the relevant existing literature lacks some empirical studies, and the results must be generalisable.

The current systematic review provides a visual diagram for practical implications to isolate undocumented, illegal, unpermitted and unskilled migrant workers and further reduce the mass exodus of migration from CLMV countries.

To the authors' knowledge, this is the first review to extend the literature to the macro-level determinants of free flow of skilled labour migration policies in CLMV countries. The present review seeks to inform the policy responses of moving freely between sending and receiving countries.

The leaders of the Association of the Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) announced to negotiate a Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RECP) in November 2012, which is comprised of 10 ASEAN Member States (Thailand, Indonesia, Philippines, Malaysia, Singapore, Brunei, Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, and Myanmar) and its six FTA partner countries (China, Japan, South Korea, Australia, New Zealand, and India). Embedded in the ASEAN Charter and implemented in all existing ASEAN + 1 FTAs, the ASEAN Centrality has been a corner stone principle in ASEAN-centric economic initiatives. Emerging discord in the region, complicated security climate and the rise of China, among others, have put the ASEAN Centrality under challenge. The development of the RCEP provides a timely case to assess ASEAN’s leadership role in creating the world’s most populous Free Trade Area. The RCEP may enhance ASEAN’s central role, but ASEAN needs to address challenges facing the regional integration now and beyond 2015. On the country/economy level, the chapter reviews some ASEAN Member States and their FTA Partners how they practice their ASEAN policy and seek leadership role in ASEAN. The three major players in ASEAN-Indonesia, Thailand, and Malaysia have reiterated the importance of the ASEAN Centrality in their foreign policy in the past, but debates emerge whether, such as in Indonesia, ASEAN Centrality best suits the national interests. The chapter also explores how the major powers, including China and the United States, respond to and collaborate with the group of smaller developing country players.

The purpose of this paper is to examine effects of regional economic integration on the concentration of manufacturing firms in provinces of Thailand on the border with Cambodia. It aims to clarify the interactions between dispersion and agglomeration forces within a firm’s location choice in the presence of economic integration and thereby to explain the feasibility of the border SEZs.

The theory of industrial clustering and New Economic Geography provides a theoretical framework to understand the locations of economic activities when regional economies are integrated. This paper employs provincial level data to calculate industry location quotients across a 10-year period from 2007 to 2017 in central Thailand and uses firm-level data from industrial censuses in 2006 and 2011 to estimate logit models for two border provinces with Cambodia and three eastern seaboard provinces. Two base models and extended models are tested to explain the persistent agglomeration of Thai firms in each manufacturing industry.

The authors found a positive correlation between the agglomeration level in 2006 and the choice of firms toward the border provinces in 2011. The disaggregated analysis shows that depending on the initial level of concentration in each industry, there can be agglomeration or dispersion effects. The advantage of low trade costs and labor costs of unskilled migrant workers are not significant factors attracting firms to the border. Firms in industries with increasing returns are more likely to stay in the hub.

The disaggregated analysis by industry provides very important implications for SEZ policy interventions. The important role of agglomeration economies limits the extent to which such policies can be successful. It would be an enormous challenge for policy makers to initiate forces which are strong enough to induce firms to relocate away from areas with high agglomerations. Policy interventions with attractive incentives should be very selective to industries already have a certain degree of concentration in the provinces so as to reinforce the agglomeration effects.

The research extends the empirical literature on SEZs by offering a unique case study of an emerging economy with a strong market foundation rather than a transitional or developed economy. It is also different from other research on SEZs when taking into account the effects of regional integration on border SEZ formation and firms’ location choices. In addition, this study employs firm-level data rather than provincial data to bring empirical insights and fill in the knowledge gap on agglomeration economies in Thailand with the presence of regional economic integration.

The purpose of this paper is twofold: first, it intends to engage in skill gain–lose debate in the contemporary global skill mobility context; and second, it looks into whether Southeast Asia (SEA) is losing by experiencing skill deficiency due to over outflow of talents.

Primary data were collected through interviews with policy makers, stakeholder and migrant professionals from Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia and the Philippines.

The paper comes up with the brain drain dynamics to better understand the trajectory of skill mobility in and from SEA. Within the skill mobility discourse, it is undoubtedly difficult to conclude who are the losers and the gainers in the long run.

This research is based on relatively small sample. However, this offers a fresh insight into the skill deficiency dynamics in Southeast Asia.

Migration of skilled workers to other countries remains a highly contentious issue. Skill drain does not take place based on skill surplus and deficient equation. Skilled migrants can make their choice to migrate on their own with minimal control of the Government. This paper aims to argue that sending countries lose skill which cannot be offset or justified by the remittances inflow.

This paper is based on a research conducted on skill migration from the Philippines, Singapore and Thailand. In this study, skilled migrants are engineers, medical doctors, nurses and academics. The author interviewed 12 engineers (four from the Philippines; two from Malaysia; four from Singapore and two from Thailand); nine medical doctors (four from the Philippines; three from Singapore, one from Malaysia and one from Thailand); eight nurses (six from the Philippines and two from Thailand); and 14 academics (six from the Philippines; five from Singapore and three from Malaysia) who were working abroad.

Skill migration continues to grow because of the growing demand, wage differentials, glorifications of the contribution of remittances to development and failure of the origin countries to retain them. The question remains whether the respective sending country is producing more of them so that they can send after their own demand is met. This paper investigates whether the sending end can afford exporting such skills.

This is an important contribution to the scholarship.

The purpose of this paper is to present a review of empirical evidence on the effectiveness of Aid for Trade (AfT) inflows and recommend new areas of interest concerning the initiative other than its effect on trade performance.

This paper reviews a sample of 55 studies over the past 11 years. Besides, this paper categorised the reviewed empirical studies into three groups: the works concentrating on the trade performance effect; the works focusing on other economic factors effect; and the works concerning the allocation effect of these inflows. This paper also offers a detailed analysis of the multiple empirical methods, sources of data, coverage of the countries and forms of AfT inflows used in the reviewed literature.

Key findings indicated that AfT has overall produced a successful impact as reported by most studies. Moreover, it has been highlighted that the effectiveness of AfT may differ relying on multiple indicators: the category of AfT disbursements; income of the recipient country; the recipient country's geographical region; the amount of aggregate AfT as well as its main categories; the policy regulation and institutional quality of the recipient country; and the degree of liberalisation in the recipient country.

This paper is special in that it is the first to publish a comprehensive narrative analysis of 55 empirical pieces of evidence on the effectiveness of AfT over the past 11 years. It is also the first paper to review the previous literature regarding the effectiveness of AfT inflows on other non-trade outcomes, as well as trade outcomes in one single study. The outcome of the survey reveals new areas of interest in the effectiveness of AfT aside from trade performance.

Regional comprehensive economic partnership (RCEP) is understood as the world's largest trading bloc given its contribution to the world output (30%). The mega trade bloc brings together 15 countries of East Asia, Southeast Asia and Oceania to eliminate tariff and non-tariff barriers in goods and services trade. The study suggests the importance of sector specific reforms for Malaysia to strengthen domestic capability.

The analytical framework constructs upon the partial equilibrium analysis and uses WITS SMART simulations.

The study finds that Malaysia's elimination of tariffs under the RCEP will cause a surge in imports from developed member countries of RCEP like Australia, South Korea and Japan. The study also finds a trade diversion in countries such as India. The empirical results establishes that RCEP would further strengthen intra-ASEAN trade.

The study explores select sectors of the manufacturing industry in Malaysia.

The implementation of RCEP would impact the manufacturing sector immensely, especially in sectors like electrical machinery and equipment and inorganic chemicals, which are two of the major trading commodities of the Malaysian economy.

Any trade agreement has a larger impact on the society. It may raise income, boost the consumer preferences and create or erode consumer welfare. The study reports the consumer welfare effect of the implementation of RCEP in Malaysia.

The study is the first attempt to do a partial equilibrium analysis for the electrical machinery and equipment sector and inorganic chemicals sector of Malaysia using both aggregated and disaggregated data at HS two-digit and HS six-digit level.

This study aims to fill this research gap by providing a comprehensive exploration of the transnationalization of higher education in China and Asia, with a particular focus on how institutions maintain quality assurance and how student learning experiences are reported.

The transnationalization of higher education involves educational programs and services provided by institutions or universities in a country other than their home country where students from diverse countries are trained. The goal of transnational education is to offer higher education to students who face obstacles in physically entering the host country of a transnational program, encourage globalization, enhance cross-cultural communication and improve the quality of education by expanding students' learning opportunities, providing diverse educational experiences and elevating academic standards. The transnationalization of higher education has become a crucial endeavor in Asia, especially in countries such as China, Malaysia and Singapore, where rapid economic development and globalization have prompted the need to evolve into knowledge-driven economies to meet the increasing demand for higher education. The factors driving the expansion of transnational higher education in China and Asia include the desire for top-quality education, the allure of international students, the establishment of worldwide collaborations and aspirations to be recognized as centers of academic distinction. The rapid expansion and increasing importance of transnational higher education has underscored the vital role of quality assurance. To guarantee educational quality, maintain institutional reputation and improve overall student outcomes, several agencies and frameworks have been established to uphold international standards.

Based upon extensive literature reveiw and case analysis, our findings indicated the quality assurance assessment varies and is primarily influenced by host countries and provider polices. However, students in transnational higher education programs report satisfaction with their experienes and the quality of their programs, which tends to meet their expecations.

This study presents the first comprehsensive literatrue rewiew and case analysis of how transnational higher education in China, Sinapore, Malaysia and Vietnam uphold quality assurance and report students learning experiences. Additionally, the findings highlight why future researceh on this topic is crucial and why forestering colloboration among countries in Asian regions is imporant in term of growing geo-politics.

The rapidly changed global context for internationalization (IZN) over the next decade prompted a decision to use a futurist perspective for identifying issues to be considered in the organization’s next strategic plan. This paper aims to report on this project to identify current and strategic issues influencing the future strategy of the higher education (HE) IZN for Thailand on behalf of the Bureau of International Cooperation Strategy and the Office of the Higher Education Commission.

The research approach was a customized version of the University of Houston’s Framework Foresight method. It involved framing the domain with a description and domain map, scanning for signals of change within the domain and emerging issues analysis to produce a set of current and emerging issues. A planning step synthesizes a set of recommended actions.

The key findings reported in this paper are the identification of 14 current and emerging issues influencing the future of the IZN of HE in Thailand. The issues were organized along with the three horizons framework: H1: how are we [currently] doing? H2: what should we do next and H3, where do we want to go? The primary recommendation of this research reported on in this study is to consider the 14 issues for inclusion into the next strategic plan. Seven specific strategic options mapped over three phases were identified as well. The research reported here was carried out for Thailand, but the process could easily be adapted by other countries and other topics.

The modified version of the University of Houston Framework Foresight approach has been applied successfully to many topics. The topic explored here is focused on one nation, Thailand. The authors feel the lessons are, however, broadly applicable.

The ability to use a futurist perspective to identify current and emerging issues is highlighted. The organizing of the issues using the three horizons framework proved to be particularly useful in helping the client to develop a sense of timing regarding the future, that is, when and to what degree to pay attention to the many issues that typically confront any organization.

The use of the three horizons framework in the analysis of the emerging issues provide benefits in two ways in situating the likely timing of signals of change in horizon scanning and “scan hits” both scanning for the identification of issues and organizing the resulting current and emerging issues along the three horizons with H1 current issues: how are we [currently] doing?; H2 emerging issues: what should we do next and H3 emerging issues, where do we want to go? The paper also includes a section exploring the impact of Covid-19 on the likely timing of the issues identified just before the pandemic hit, finding that timing of some issues would speed up, some would stay the same and some would slow down.