Based on the variable rate of gross domestic product per capita growth and its sources, this paper first identifies five phases of economic development that are common to China, Japan, and Korea. But there are also marked differences in the onset, duration, and institutional forms of these phases across these economies. In order to understand...

Ttrade reforms may have conflicting impact on informality and corruption. Stringent regulations coupled with corruption generate and sustain extra legal or informal transactions in the developing countries. Does trade related reform discourage informal activities and corruption? This paper attempts to analyze such a phenomenon. An import competing firm allocates production between a high wage formal...

This paper shows that the decision for the introduction of internet banking depends on the profit level for the bank rather than the asset size and/or operation costs. E-finance in Korea has evolved since the late 1980s, when developments in information and telecommunication technology started to be applied to the financial industry. Since the 1990s...

This paper examines the optimality of environmental standards that are often observed to be imposed by the importing North on exporting South. In the context of goods differentiated in terms of environmental quality and the degree of consumption pollution they generate, consumers' willingness-to-pay varying with such quality and being different across income groups, we show...

Grassroots action across the globe demonstrates that collectivities of the poor can improve their well-being in ways that individual approaches usually cannot. It can enhance their incomes, their self-respect, their ability to challenge structural inequalities and oppressive social norms, and their bargaining power in markets, both at home and with the State. The process of...