On March 12th 2020, World Health Organization (WHO) declared the spreading of the new virus, 2019-nCoV, a pandemic. In Asia, the virus, more commonly referred to as COVID-19, has been spreading since the end of December. To contain the public health threat, almost all countries enforced a variety of measures, including lockdowns, to minimize face-to-face human interactions between the infected and the susceptible.While these vigilant measures save lives, they also generate a substantial negative economic shock that immediately halts demand and significantly disrupts supply, global production value chain and trade. The consequences are dire - considerable decline in output, massive surge in unemployment, countless bankruptcy cases, and unrelentless worries over financial stability. The result, a worldwide economic setback, is more severe than that experienced during the Great Financial Crisis of 2008-2009.Asia's experiences with COVID-19 precede that in the West. This fortuitous timing allows Asia to share its learnings drawn from experiences to benefit the world.The Asian Bureau of Finance and Economic Research's (ABFER) community has gathered a collection of insights to inform the public. Besides providing access to research on the pandemic conducted in Asia, these commentaries offer comprehensive information on the effects of the pandemic, the effectiveness of measures employed to contain it and the subsequent economic impacts from such implementation. With granular analyses of government policies and their associated economic rescue packages, these commentaries elucidate the hard trade-offs between public health protection and economic security. Finally, the commentaries address the broader impact of the pandemic on international trade, global value chains and society.

Recent technological advancements, particularly the advent of distributed ledger, have made the development of private digital currencies possible. This raises some important questions: Whether private digital currencies can be considered 'money' and their impact on monetary policy and the international monetary system; whether central banks should issue their own digital currencies and the impact of such actions; and the usage of the distributed ledger technology in the financial system.In November 2018, the Asian Bureau of Finance and Economic Research (ABFER), the Economic Policy Group (EPG) of the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS), and the National University of Singapore (NUS) Business School co-organised a two-day workshop on Digital Currency Economics and Policy to explore these issues. Leading academic researchers in monetary and financial economics offered valuable stimulating insights useful to practitioners, policymakers and academics in a non-technical manner. This volume is a collection of their work.This volume suggests that central banks will most likely issue digital currencies. There are many positive considerations. A central bank digital currency can generate useful information for the monetary authority, can enhance the effectiveness and flexibility of monetary policy, and may raise financial inclusion. Central bank digital currency, however, can have a significant impact on the banking and financial sector and could change a central bank's role in the economy.This volume also explains crucial differences between distributed ledger and centralized ledger, which is the basis of currency payment systems. Continuous innovations have made the distributed ledger technology more resilient, auditable and scalable, giving it far-reaching applications and potential contributions.For anyone who would like to gain a fundamental and comprehensive understanding of the impact of technology on our money and financial system and the future implications, this is a must-read volume.

This book provides an anatomy of Hong Kong's 2019-2020 social unrest, which has significantly damaged its economy and image. A coalition of Opposition to the Communist Party of China (CPC) emerged in Hong Kong after the 1989 Tiananmen Square Incident. The Basic Law, Hong Kong's mini-constitution which took effect in 1997, defined 'one country, two systems' in Hong Kong but inadvertently installed an 'opposition politics' system that the city was unfamiliar with. Fresh out of a colonial system, Hong Kong did not have the socio-ecological system to hold politicians accountable for their policies. For more than two decades, the tug of war between the Opposition and all other politicians has been delivering inconsistent public policies raising the costs of living and income disparity while hollowing out job opportunities. As a result, the younger generations have been immensely hurt. Meanwhile, the Opposition Camp has been promoting the blame narrative that the CPC is chipping away at Hong Kong's democracy and freedom. While the narrative's empirical evidence is weak and its linkage to Hong Kong's economic grievances is absent, the Opposition Camp has fallen captive to the narrative in the sense that its legitimacy is now tied to the narrative.For more than twenty years, rallies built on the blame narrative have profoundly influenced the development of people who grew up after 1997. Furthermore, the year-long unrest has socialised many more to adopt the narrative. The younger generations have been hurt by inconsistent public policies, and on top of that, the blame narrative has robbed them of any coherent social identity; and finally, the unrest has further dimmed their future. Hong Kong is now facing the problem of how to reincorporate a significant portion among its younger generations into mainstream society. This book offers in-depth analyses of the journey, identifies government and societal failures, and suggests long- and short-term policy directions.

This book provides an anatomy of Hong Kong's 2019-2020 social unrest, which has significantly damaged its economy and image. A coalition of Opposition to the Communist Party of China (CPC) emerged in Hong Kong after the 1989 Tiananmen Square Incident. Hong Kong's mini-constitution, the Basic Law, which became effective in 1997, defines 'one country, two systems' in Hong Kong but inadvertently installed an 'opposition politics' system that the city was unfamiliar with. Freshly out of a colonial system, Hong Kong did not have the socio-ecological system to hold politicians accountable for their policies. For decades, the tug of war between the Opposition and all other politicians delivered incoherent public policies that raised the costs of living and income disparity, while hollowing out economic opportunities in the middle that particularly hurt the younger generations. Meanwhile, the Opposition camp promotes the blame narrative that the CPC is chipping away at Hong Kong's democracy and freedom. While the narrative's empirical evidence is weak and its linkage to Hong Kong's economic grievances is absent, the Opposition camp propagates the narrative relentlessly. Ironically, the Opposition Camp has fallen captive to the narrative in the sense that its legitimacy is now tied with the narrative. Two decades of rallies grounded on the blame narrative have profoundly influenced the development of people who grew up after 1997. Furthermore, the year-long unrest has socialized many more to adopt the narrative. The younger generations are hurt first by inconsistent public policies, and on top of that, the blame narrative that robs them of any coherent social identity; and finally, the unrest further dims their future. Hong Kong now faces the problem of how to re-incorporate a significant portion among its younger generations into mainstream society. This book offers in-depth analyses of the journey, identifies government and societal failures, and suggests long- and short-term policy directions.

Rapid technological developments in communications and transportation, economic liberalization and the emergence of new economies with vast market potential have changed the shape of international production. This scholarly selection of articles represents some of the most important contributions to an understanding of this ongoing, global economic restructuring and its impact on the geographic configuration of production and the economic competitiveness of nations in the world economy.

This authoritative collection presents the most important published articles on barter and countertrade from early scepticism to the recent sophisticated theoretical models and empirical evidence. The papers selected focus upon the policy and managerial implications of barter and countertrade and explain the reasoning behind these arrangements in an environment characterized by transaction difficulties. They demonstrate that appropriately designed transactional governance is crucial for the efficiency of successful trading relationships between different parties. The Economics of Barter and Countertrade is a timely collection due to the resurgence of barter and countertrade following the Russian and Asian financial crises. It is an essential reference source for those with an interest in trade and international economic relations.

Entrepreneurship has always been a key factor in economic growth, innovation, and the development of firms and businesses. More recently, new technologies, the waning of the 'old economy', globalization, changing cultures and popular attitudes, and new policy stances have further highlighted the importance of entrepreneurship and enterprise. Entrepreneurship is now a dynamic and expanding area of research, teaching, and debate, but there has been no standard reference work which is suitable for both established scholars and new researchers. This book fills that gap. All the major aspects of entrepreneurship are covered, including: * the start-up and growth of firms, * financing and venture capital, * innovation, technology and marketing, * women entrepreneurs, * ethnic entrepreneurs, * migration, * small firm policy, * the economic and social history of entrepreneurship. This is a comprehensive review of state-of-the-art research in entrepreneurship, written by an international team of leading scholars, and will be an essential reference for academics and policy makers, as well as being suitable for use on masters courses and doctoral programmes.

Entrepreneurship has always been a key factor in economic growth, innovation, and the development of firms and businesses. More recently, new technologies, the waning of the "old economy," globalization, changing cultures and popular attitudes, and new policy stances have further highlighted the importance of entrepreneurship and enterprise.
Entrepreneurship is now a dynamic and expanding area of research, teaching, and debate, but there has been no standard reference work which is suitable for both established scholars and new researchers. This book fills that gap. All the major aspects of entrepreneurship are covered, including:
* the start-up and growth of firms,
* financing and venture capital,
* innovation, technology and marketing,
* women entrepreneurs,
* ethnic entrepreneurs,
* migration,
* small firm policy,
* the economic and social history of entrepreneurship.
This is a comprehensive review of state-of-the-art research in entrepreneurship, written by an international team of leading scholars, and will be an essential reference for academics and policy makers, as well as being suitable for use on masters courses and doctoral programs.

Increased integration of financial markets has led to many tangible economic benefits in Asia and around the world; yet, greater financial globalization has also exposed emerging economies to the vagaries of international capital flows. Harnessing the benefits of financial globalization while mitigating the risks posed by procyclical financial flows is a major preoccupation that has required central bankers in Asia and around the world to extend their focus beyond price and exchange rate stability to include the stability and efficiency of the financial system. This expanded domain of concern for central bankers has brought new, often complex, policy challenges. Since 2014, the Monetary Authority of Singapore, Asian Bureau of Finance and Economic Research, University of Chicago Booth Business School, and National University of Singapore Business School have organised the Asian Monetary Policy Forum (AMPF) annually, bringing together prominent academics, policymakers and private sector economists to deliberate pressing monetary policy issues particularly relevant for Asian countries. The aim is to draw lessons from experience for the benefit of policymakers in the region and beyond. This volume includes selected AMPF speeches and commissioned papers from 2014 to 2020. Based on the latest academic research in economics and finance and written for a more general audience, the chapters cover a range of topics that have assumed central importance in the global monetary and financial system over the past twenty years. These include the efficacy of traditional monetary policy frameworks against the backdrop of synchronised global financial flows, the challenges presented by the US dollar dominance in the international trade and monetary systems, and the optimality of central banks' use of a wider set of policy instruments within an integrated policy framework to attain price and financial stability.