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Begin New Search Topic Economics Political Geography Asia Content Type Working Paper Publication Year within 25 Years

1. What Japanese Tourism Amenities are Influenced in Terms of Affecting Inbound Tourist Demand?

Author:
Yoko Konishi and Takashi Saito
Publication Date:
08-2023
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Economic Research Institute for ASEAN and East Asia (ERIA)
Abstract:
Since 2012, the number of inbound tourists to Japan has increased every year, and new records of tourism-related economic indicators are being updated. On the other hand, the sudden inbound boom has led to a concentration of travel destinations, and over-tourism has become a problem. In this paper, we first statistically observe the concentration of tourists by accommodation type for each country of origin. Second, by identifying tourism amenities that contribute to inbound demand, we gain the knowledge necessary to shift demand from facilities with a high concentration of inbound tourists to facilities with lower occupancy. For the analysis, we utilised establishment data from the Online Travel Agency ‘Accommodation Travel Statistics Survey’ and data on tourism resources by region. The results show that the number of rooms, average price, membership of the hotel in a chain, internet availability, room type, number of World Heritage sites, and number of direct flights positively affect inbound demand. In particular, for ryokan (Japanese-style inns) with low occupancy rates and inbound guest ratios, their independence, internet availability, Western-style room availability, number of World Heritage sites, and hot spring facilities are effective in capturing demand.
Topic:
Economics, Tourism, Hospitality, and Travel
Political Geography:
Japan and Asia

2. Digitalization of Special Economic Zones in China

Author:
Jie (Jeanne) Huang
Publication Date:
01-2022
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
China Studies Centre, The University of Sydney
Abstract:
Special Economic Zones (SEZ) have become the forefront in China to test legal and technological reforms for digital trade. This chapter explores three cutting-edge case studies in China’s SEZs: the Beijing blockchain-based Single Window deposit box; newly established big data exchanges in Beijing, Tianjin, and Shanghai SEZs; and pilot projects in financial, medical care and automobile industries to flow data across the border in the Shanghai SEZ. It scrutinizes China's experiments in the context of its applications to join CPTPP and DEPA. It argues that the development of Chinese domestic law for digital trade is shifting away from the traditional paradigm that uses international commitments to push domestic reform or make domestic law according to international law. The development of Chinese domestic law for digital trade relies much more on China’s domestic needs than what FTAs negotiations require. FTAs are increasingly becoming a tool for China to shape international law rather than a benchmark for legislating domestic Chinese law.
Topic:
Development, Economics, International Trade and Finance, Hegemony, and Digitalization
Political Geography:
China and Asia

3. Public responses to foreign protectionism: Evidence from the US-China trade war

Author:
David Steinberg and Yeling Tan
Publication Date:
06-2022
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Peterson Institute for International Economics
Abstract:
America's recent turn toward protectionism has raised concerns about the future viability of the liberal international trading system. This study examines how and why public attitudes toward international trade change when one's country is targeted by protectionist measures from abroad. To address this question, the authors fielded three original survey experiments in the country most affected by US protectionism: China. First, they find consistent evidence that US protectionism reduces Chinese citizens' support for trade. This finding is replicated in parallel experiments on technology cooperation, and further validated outside of the China context with a survey experiment in Argentina. Second, they show that responses to US protectionism reflect both a "direct reciprocity" logic—citizens want to retaliate against the United States specifically—and a "generalized reciprocity" logic that reduces support for trade on a broader, systemic basis.
Topic:
Economics, International Trade and Finance, Protectionism, and Competition
Political Geography:
China, Asia, North America, and United States of America

4. Why gender disparities persist in South Korea’s labor market

Author:
Karen Dynan, Jacob Funk Kirkegaard, and Anna Stansbury
Publication Date:
07-2022
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Peterson Institute for International Economics
Abstract:
Although the South Korean economy fared relatively well on the whole during the pandemic, the labor market consequences were uneven, with women experiencing worse outcomes than men. These gender disparities have reinforced and highlighted important longer-term gender-related challenges in the South Korean labor market. Despite an above-average level of female tertiary education, the gender pay gap in South Korea is at the top of the range among OECD countries. The labor force participation rate is 20 percentage points lower for women than for men, a difference that is about one-quarter larger than the average for high-income countries. These disparities—as well as fertility that is the lowest of any advanced economy country in the world—reduce South Korea's future economic prospects and will contribute to fiscal challenges as the population rapidly ages. The analysis in this paper suggests that the combination of low female employment and low fertility in South Korea reflects features of the traditional nature of work that create a particularly stark tradeoff for women between work and family and put pressure on women to choose one or the other. This tradeoff has increased in recent years because the opportunity cost of having a child has risen with the rapid growth in the tertiary education rate of South Korean women. Regressions based on individual-level data from the Korean Labor and Income Panel Study (KLIPS) show that the entire gap in female labor force participation is driven by married women, particularly women with children. Unmarried women with no children are just as likely to be employed as men. A sizable "child earnings penalty" for South Korean women is fully explained by women dropping out of the labor force after the birth of their first child rather than reducing hours or hourly wages. Although South Korea has made strides toward making work more family friendly, there is scope to do better.
Topic:
Economics, Inequality, Labor Market, Fertility, and Gender
Political Geography:
Asia and South Korea

5. Will economic statecraft threaten western currency dominance? Sanctions, geopolitics, and the global monetary order

Author:
Carla Norrlof
Publication Date:
09-2022
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Atlantic Council
Abstract:
The return of great power rivalry is stoking renewed fears of weakening Western currency dominance. Financial sanctions are becoming the preferred economic tool for accomplishing geopolitical goals. These instruments are especially popular with the United States and Europe. In response, rival great powers, notably China and Russia, are diversifying away from Western currencies and developing counterstrategies to maintain economic and foreign policy autonomy. As other countries are hit by increasingly punishing Western sanctions, the incentive to join Russia and China’s alternative international monetary order increases. New analysis, published in this report, shows early signs that some countries may be trying to diversify away from the dollar. A growing circle of countries attempting to evade the Western-centric financial and currency order may over time erode the dollar and the euro’s sizeable lead, though will likely fall well short of ending their global dominance. This report analyzes these trends and quantifies the extent of reserve diversification following Russia’s 2022 war on Ukraine. It also assesses the polarity of the international currency order since the onset of the euro in 2002. Reserve diversification out of the dollar, and into the euro, has been modest, though Chinese renminbi reserves grew after Russia’s February offensive in Ukraine. Dollar unipolarity declined acutely in 2017 as the number of countries sanctioned by the United States increased and the US President Donald J. Trump threatened to revoke alliance commitments. Using economic statecraft while retaining global economic influence will require the United States to keep its economic house in order and allies close, if the current unipolar currency order is to survive.
Topic:
Economics, Monetary Policy, Sanctions, and Geopolitics
Political Geography:
China, Europe, and Asia

6. China’s Infrastructure Projects in the Middle East: Lessons from China’s Engagement Elsewhere

Author:
Dominika Urhová
Publication Date:
12-2022
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Moshe Dayan Center for Middle Eastern and African Studies
Abstract:
In our latest issue of Iqtisadi, Ms. Dominika Urhova discusses the economic strategy and role of China in the Middle East, and analyzes the implications of China's growing influence in the region.
Topic:
Foreign Policy, Development, Economics, Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), and Strategic Engagement
Political Geography:
China, Middle East, and Asia

7. Economic Zones and Local Income Inequality: Evidence from Indonesia

Author:
Cecília Hornok and Sidan Raeskyesa
Publication Date:
06-2022
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW)
Abstract:
Economic zones can be powerful drivers of economic growth in developing countries. However, less is known about their distributional impact on the local society. This paper provides empirical evidence from Indonesian provinces on the relationship between economic zones and within-province income inequality. Estimates from panel regressions and synthetic control case studies suggest that this relationship is positive overall. The estimated rise in income inequality after a zone opens is relatively small on average and may be short-lived. However, the average estimate masks large regional differences, which suggests that the inequality implications of economic zone policies depend on local conditions. One explanation for the rise in inequality is that the unskilled population benefits disproportionately less from the policy. As a remedy, we propose education and training programs that target the poor and unskilled and in which companies also actively participate.
Topic:
Economics, Emerging Markets, Globalization, Economic Growth, and Income Distribution
Political Geography:
Indonesia, Asia, and Southeast Asia

8. China’s Development Path: Government, Business, and Globalization in an Innovating Economy

Author:
Yin Yi and William Lazonick
Publication Date:
08-2022
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Institute for New Economic Thinking (INET)
Abstract:
We employ the “social conditions of innovative enterprise” framework to analyze the key determinants of China’s development path from the economic reforms of 1978 to the present. First, we focus on how government investments in human capabilities and physical infrastructure provided foundational support for the emergence of Chinese enterprises capable of technological learning. Second, we delve into the main modes by which Chinese firms engaged in technological learning from abroad—joint ventures with foreign multinationals, global value chains, and experienced high-tech returnees—that have contributed to industrial development in China. Third, we provide evidence on achievements in indigenous innovation—by which we mean improvements in national productive capabilities that build on learning from abroad and enable the innovating firms to engage in global competition—in the computer, automobile, communication-technology, and semiconductor-fabrication industries. Finally, we sketch out the implications of our approach for current debates on the role of innovation in China’s development path as it continues to unfold.
Topic:
Development, Economics, Globalization, Infrastructure, Hegemony, and Innovation
Political Geography:
China and Asia

9. Japan and the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP)

Author:
Mie Oba
Publication Date:
10-2022
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Economic Research Institute for ASEAN and East Asia (ERIA)
Abstract:
This paper aims to clarify the role of Japan in the process leading up to the establishment of the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP). While emphasising that respect for the centrality of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) was a principle of RCEP, Japan played a leading role in the process of RCEP negotiations. For Japan, RCEP is one of the fruits of its strategy in East Asia/Asia-Pacific that began the mid-1990s to protect and increase the interests and advantages of Japanese business and retain Japan’s political leverage in the region. When substantial negotiations for RCEP began in 2013, its importance for Japan was secondary to other free trade agreements (FTAs) including the Trans-Pacific Partnership, China–Japan–Korea FTA, and Japan–European Union FTA. However, the Government of Japan and the business community had set a lot of economic and strategic goals in promoting RCEP. After the withdrawal of the United States (US) from the Trans-Pacific Partnership, RCEP was seen as an essential framework for establishing a rules-based regional order in the Indo-Pacific region. Although it was after India’s withdrawal from the RCEP negotiations, Japan further emphasised the importance of RCEP as the measure to sustain and foster the rule-based regional order and simultaneously pursued the conclusion of negotiations and the establishment of high-level rules, achieving some success. Ultimately, the havoc brought about by the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic and the sense of crisis in the traditional liberal international order caused by the intensifying strategic competition between the US and China, drove the conclusion of RCEP. RCEP will be increasingly important for economic order in Japan and Asia in the coming years. Ironically, as the strategic competition between the US and China escalates and leads to a surge in protectionism, the economic and strategic importance of RCEP – an FTA that incorporates China – is becoming more significant as a measure to counter unilateralism and protectionism. In addition, RCEP needs elements that address globalisation’s adverse effects and pitfalls, in areas such as the environment, labour rights, and a reduction in the disparity between the rich and poor.
Topic:
Development, Economics, International Trade and Finance, and Regional Cooperation
Political Geography:
Japan and Asia

10. International Production Network in the Next Generation and the Role of RCEP

Author:
Mitsuyo Ando, Fukunari Kimura, and Kenta Yamanouchi
Publication Date:
10-2022
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Economic Research Institute for ASEAN and East Asia (ERIA)
Abstract:
This paper attempts to discuss the potential role of RCEP from the perspective of two kinds of international division of labor, i.e., machinery international production networks (IPNs) and digital-related services trade. To consider the possible contribution of RCEP to the widening and deepening of IPNs, we first provide an overview of machinery IPNs in ASEAN and East Asia by employing international trade data, a value-added based index for global value chain (GVC) activities using international input–output tables, and a gravity equation exercise. Then, we focus on trade in two global innovator services – information and communication technology (ICT) services and other business services exports – to foresee the future of the new international division of labour and highlights some policy issues. RCEP should be an evolving, living one. In terms of liberalisation and facilitation as well as international rule-making, which cover the whole region, RCEP is expected to revise and upgrade the contents to support the dynamic international division of labour in East Asia. At the same time, RCEP may play an important role in reducing policy risks due to ad hoc trade policies based on political intension and defending the rules-based trading regime for the regional economy.
Topic:
Economics, International Trade and Finance, Labor Issues, and Digital Economy
Political Geography:
Asia and ASEAN

11. Potential Impact of RCEP and Structural Transformation on Cambodia

Author:
Shandre Mugan Thangavelu and Vutha Hing
Publication Date:
10-2022
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Economic Research Institute for ASEAN and East Asia (ERIA)
Abstract:
This paper examines the potential impact of the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) on the Cambodian economy in terms of trade, output growth, and employment. It also provides quantitative (structural gravity model estimation and simulation) and qualitative trade policy evaluation in terms of exports, output, and the structural transformation of the economy in global and regional value chains. The results highlight the importance of RCEP for the pandemic and post-pandemic recovery and the structural transformation of the Cambodian economy. The paper also provides key policy recommendations to fully maximise the benefits of RCEP for Cambodia for inclusive and sustainable growth.
Topic:
Economics, International Trade and Finance, Regional Cooperation, and Global Value Chains
Political Geography:
Asia and Cambodia

12. The Implications of the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) for Asian Regional Architecture

Author:
Shiro Armstrong and Peter Drysdale
Publication Date:
10-2022
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Economic Research Institute for ASEAN and East Asia (ERIA)
Abstract:
East Asia’s Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) came into force in 2022 as the world’s largest free trade agreement. RCEP was concluded, signed and brought into force in the face of major international uncertainty and is a significant boost to the global trading system. RCEP brings Australia, China, Japan, South Korea and New Zealand into the same agreement with the ten member ASEAN group at its centre. It keeps markets open and updates trade and investment rules in East Asia, a major centre of global economic activity, at a time of rising protectionism when the WTO itself is under threat. The agreement builds on ASEAN’s free trade agreements and strengthens ASEAN centrality. One of the pillars of RCEP is an economic cooperation agenda which has its antecedents in ASEAN’s approach to bringing along its least developed members and builds on the experience of capacity building in APEC and technical cooperation under the ASEAN Australia-New Zealand Free Trade Agreement. There is an opportunity to create a framework that facilitates deeper economic cooperation that involves experience-sharing, extending RCEP’s rules and membership at the same time as strengthening political cooperation. The paper suggests some areas that might be best suited to cooperation — that is confidence and trust building instead of or before negotiation — and discusses how non-members such as India may be engaged and the membership expanded. Options such as multilateralising provisions and becoming a platform for policy convergence and coordinating unilateral reforms are canvassed.
Topic:
Economics, International Trade and Finance, Regional Cooperation, and Architecture
Political Geography:
Asia and ASEAN

13. Restrictiveness of RCEP Rules of Origin: Implications for Global Value Chains in East Asia

Author:
Archanun Kohpaiboon and Juthatip Jongwanich
Publication Date:
10-2022
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Economic Research Institute for ASEAN and East Asia (ERIA)
Abstract:
This chapter aims to examine the restrictiveness of rules of origin (RoO) in the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) and other key multilateral free trade agreements (FTAs) in East Asia with a view to facilitating the operations of existing global value chains (GVCs). The analysis begins with dissecting PSRs in the RoO Chapter in these FTAs and quantifying them. The key finding is that product-specific rules in RCEP are the most flexible compared to the other multilateral FTAs and more facilitative to GVC operations. This is driven by RCEP-specific features, such as high intra-member trade and the member coverage. The main policy inference is that a full cumulation clause is needed in RCEP to allow a regional value content alternative to be in full effect. Harmonisation in RoO provision across these multilateral FTAs remains a challenge for ongoing negotiation. Monitoring the dynamics of RoO as well as the FTA utilisation is needed so that these multilateral FTAs could be a true stepping stone for trade liberalisation in the broader World Trade Organization multilateral trading system.
Topic:
Economics, International Trade and Finance, Regional Cooperation, and Global Value Chains
Political Geography:
Asia and ASEAN

14. Centrality and Community: ASEAN in the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership

Author:
Soo Yeon Kim
Publication Date:
09-2022
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Economic Research Institute for ASEAN and East Asia (ERIA)
Abstract:
This paper examines the Association of Southeast Asian Nations’ (ASEAN) role in the formation of the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) agreement. The RCEP project proceeded as trade governance has shifted from the multilateral trade regime under the World Trade Organization to free trade agreements and where the geopolitics of Asia has cast a shadow on the progress of regional integration efforts. The analysis in this paper focuses on ASEAN centrality, both as a concept and practice, in influencing the launch and progress of RCEP. Conceptually, ASEAN centrality is about the capacity of the 10-member group to help launch negotiations for the RCEP agreement and to shape its provisions for governing trade. In practice, the RCEP agreement consolidates and significantly unravels the numerous overlapping trade agreements between ASEAN, 38 in all between individual ASEAN members and its five RCEP partners, Australia, China, Japan, the Republic of Korea, and New Zealand. The paper also examines the relationship between the ASEAN Economic Community (AEC) and RCEP. RCEP provides for further tariff liberalisation between ASEAN members and its five RCEP partners and thus expands the zone of preferential treatment for goods exported from ASEAN and other RCEP members. RCEP also consolidates rules of origin requirements under one agreement, providing for diagonal cumulation and common rules of cumulation for agreement partners. The RCEP provisions can greatly facilitate production and trade along regional supply chains, thus accelerating the progress of the AEC as a single market and production base. Moving forwards, RCEP and ASEAN’s place in it, is likely to be shaped by challenges and opportunities from the Comprehensive and Progressive Transpacific Partnership and the Biden administration’s Indo-Pacific Economic Framework (IPEF) initiative. The ASEAN members with overlapping membership in the IPEF and RCEP will be pivotal in determining areas of cooperation. Regional integration will thus continue to be shaped by ASEAN centrality, and its progress will shape the ASEAN community.
Topic:
Diplomacy, Economics, International Trade and Finance, and Regional Cooperation
Political Geography:
Asia and ASEAN

15. Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership: Economic Backgrounds of ASEAN and Its Dialogue Partners

Author:
Keita Oikawa, Fusanori Iwasaki, and Shujiro Urata
Publication Date:
09-2022
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Economic Research Institute for ASEAN and East Asia (ERIA)
Abstract:
We overview the economic backgrounds of the countries participating in the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) negotiations and two Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Dialogue Partners – the United States (US) and the European Union (EU) – to understand their economic relationships before the signing of the RCEP and their economic interests in the RCEP. We discover that the 16 countries participating in RCEP negotiations vary in terms of economic size, income level, growth pattern, share of trade in the economy, and foreign direct investment (FDI) flows. Additionally, both lower- and higher-income ASEAN Member States (AMS) have received a large amount of FDI, in contrast to Japan and the Republic of Korea (henceforth, Korea), which have seen more FDI outflows from their countries than inflows. In terms of bilateral FDI inflows and outflows, as a centre for regional FDI, Singapore attracts FDI from developed countries (including the US and the EU) and reinvests it in India and other AMS. As an FDI hub, Singapore promotes liberalised regional markets to attract advanced country investors. By examining bilateral trade relationships, we find that as the centre of manufacturing in the world, ASEAN and China have participated in international production networks that also include Japan and Korea since 2000. Japan and Korea have maintained competitiveness in intermediate goods in the region’s production networks, while China notably exports final products to the US and the EU. Amongst the 16 countries participating in RCEP negotiations, India has not had a significant presence in the production networks. Indeed, India has expanded its bilateral trade deficit with China, which probably caused India to withdraw from RCEP negotiations to protect its manufacturing industry. Simulation results of the impacts of the RCEP, using a computable general equilibrium (CGE) model (Global Trade Analysis Project model), show that the countries participating in RCEP negotiations – particularly the less developed AMS – would gain greatly from lowering services trade costs and investment liberalisation. India would also gain significantly from the RCEP. In contrast, countries not participating in RCEP negotiations (the US and the EU) would experience small negative impacts of the RCEP through trade diversion effects.
Topic:
Diplomacy, Economics, International Trade and Finance, and Regional Cooperation
Political Geography:
Asia and ASEAN

16. Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership, ASEAN’s Agency, and the Role of ASEAN Members in Shaping the Regional Economic Order

Author:
Huong Le Thu
Publication Date:
09-2022
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Economic Research Institute for ASEAN and East Asia (ERIA)
Abstract:
The Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) – a mega free trade agreement comprising 15 countries – the 10 Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Member States and the dialogue partners (China, Japan, the Republic of Korea, Australia, and New Zealand) was finalised in November 2020. This paper looks at the process of the RCEP negotiations as an example of an ASEAN exercising agency. This paper also argues that RCEP asserts the agency of smaller powers within the trade network – ASEAN and its member states – particularly the more active role of individual members, including Viet Nam and Singapore amongst the most diplomatically supportive of the deal. The circumstances under which RCEP came to life is not trivial. Under Viet Nam’s ASEAN chair in 2020, and amidst the global pandemic, RCEP was finalised. RCEP’s political and geo-economic significance arguably can overtake its economic role. In the time of great power competition where China becomes one of the key economic centres of the world, and the United States (US) competes with a vision of Indo-Pacific, the region’s middle and smaller powers are anxious about becoming ‘collateral damage’, particularly in the process of US–China ‘decoupling’. The ASEAN countries have emphasised the reluctance to ‘choose a side’. RCEP shows that they can show agency in carrying out trade liberalisation at the time when the global leader of the US in this field is missing. A mega-trade deal can be successfully led by smaller, and even developing, economies.
Topic:
Economics, Regional Cooperation, Social Order, and Strategic Interests
Political Geography:
Asia and ASEAN

17. Trade Facilitation in RCEP Countries

Author:
Weixiang Wang and Shandre Mugan Thangavelu
Publication Date:
09-2022
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Economic Research Institute for ASEAN and East Asia (ERIA)
Abstract:
The trade facilitation under the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) is critical for regional trade and economic cooperation amongst the 15 member countries. This chapter examines the trade facilitation under RCEP using the available datasets on the trade facilitation index and compares the current trends in trade facilitation across RCEP countries in terms of four dimensions: the World Trade Organization’s Trade Facilitation Agreement, digital trade streamlining, ease of doing business, and trade logistics performance. The study finds that RCEP countries have improved significantly in trade facilitation measures, but they vary across the countries. For example, China should further enhance its performance in cross-border paperless trade, whilst the Association of Southeast Asian Nations countries should improve their performance in the documentary compliance of trade, the infrastructure of trade, and trade logistics performance.
Topic:
Economics, International Trade and Finance, Regional Cooperation, and Regionalism
Political Geography:
Asia and ASEAN

18. Opportunities and Challenges for ASEAN and East Asia from the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership on E-Commerce

Author:
Jane Kelsey
Publication Date:
09-2022
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Economic Research Institute for ASEAN and East Asia (ERIA)
Abstract:
The Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) is a microcosm of the current tensions in negotiations on digital trade involving parties that have divergent positions on the digital economy, data, and regulation, including within the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) itself. It adopts a prudent approach that recognises the state parties need flexibility and policy space at the national and regional levels to develop of policy and regulation in the rapidly changing digital ecosystem and seeks to advance their collective interests through dialogue and cooperation. This paper contrasts that approach with the disciplinary nature of binding legal obligations that are enforceable by other states and their investors, as in the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement and similar recent treaties. The analysis of key differences focuses on matters of particular importance to ASEAN, such as local content and government procurement, data rules and flexibilities, financial data, source codes, and transparency. RCEP’s cautious approach enables ASEAN members to deepen their national and regional understanding of the opportunities and challenges these agreements present, whilst developing and implementing their own digital development strategies. Yet those good efforts may be undermined through the binding and enforceable trade in services rules.
Topic:
Economics, Regional Cooperation, Digital Economy, and Economic Cooperation
Political Geography:
Asia and ASEAN

19. Traditional Services Trade in the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership

Author:
Zhang Yan and Shandre Mugan Thangavelu
Publication Date:
09-2022
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Economic Research Institute for ASEAN and East Asia (ERIA)
Abstract:
Traditional services trade (TST), including tourism and transport services, is the basic and key component of services trade in the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP). The implementation of RCEP will provide a platform for further liberalisation in TST, thus effectively promoting the growth of the whole service trade and the development of the travel and transportation industry. In this paper we will first show the trade pattern of TST in RCEP. Then, the commitments by each RCEP member will be thoroughly analysed, and the Hoekman index will be constructed to measure the liberalisation levels for the RCEP members. In the last section, we outline some impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on TST and propose policy implications for RCEP in the post pandemic era.
Topic:
Economics, Tourism, Services, and Transportation
Political Geography:
Asia and ASEAN

20. The Investment Chapter in the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership: Enhanced Rules without Enforcement Mechanism

Author:
Henry Gao
Publication Date:
09-2022
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Economic Research Institute for ASEAN and East Asia (ERIA)
Abstract:
This paper examines the legal rules in the investment chapter in the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP). It starts with an overview and summary of the main provisions in the chapter, followed by an assessment of the rules by comparing established free trade agreements (FTAs), especially the Comprehensive and Progressive Trans-Pacific Partnership. In particular, it notes that the chapter, whilst largely following the established approaches to investment in other FTAs, also includes important twists to the common rules to favour the host states. The last part discusses the conspicuous absence of an investor–state dispute settlement mechanism, its pros and cons, and wider implications on regional integration, then concludes with some thoughts on future developments.
Topic:
Economics, Regional Cooperation, Economic Cooperation, and Strategic Interests
Political Geography:
Asia and ASEAN