Ideas for Developing Asia and the Pacific

Call for Papers on Fostering Sustainable Development and Firm Performance in Asia Amid De-Globalization

Fostering Sustainable Development and Firm Performance in Asia Amid De-Globalization
Asian Development Bank Institute (ADBI), Productivity Research Network (PRN), and INSEAD
Tokyo, Japan

Continued trade tensions, rising protectionism, and populism are significant obstacles to future growth. These challenges are especially salient for Asia and firms operating in the region given their potential to greatly disrupt global value chains while raising uncertainty about WTO rules and leaving preferential trade arrangements prone to renegotiation as in the case of Brexit and NAFTA. Many businesses are rethinking their supply chains, moving to new locations, or postponing investments, contributing to a slowdown in growth in both developed and developing economies.

Despite these trends, integration into global production networks and attracting knowledge capital embodied in foreign direct investment remain strategic pillars of development for many emerging markets seeking to import high quality intermediate goods, export to new markets, and improve productivity via resulting knowledge and technology transfers. At the same time, expanding business efficiency and capital cost discrepancies imply that while high growth may be limited to a narrow number of firms, aggregate productivity of the economy increases only slowly. In addition, environmental and income distribution concerns indicate that growth policies must address a much more complex set of issues, spanning trade, industrial, competition and fiscal policies.

ADBI, the Productivity Research Network (PRN), and INSEAD invite papers addressing these themes, with strong policy relevance and emphasis on Asia. Topics of interest include, but are not limited to:

  • The future of the WTO and preferential trade arrangements
  • Industrial and competition policy for exports and productivity
  • Trade, technology, and distribution
  • Global value chain integration
  • New drivers of firm performance and productivity
  • Sustainable development and the middle-income trap
  • Industrial and trade policies in the face of rising inequality and populism
  • Factor reallocation and growth

Submission Procedure:

Papers should be submitted to [email protected] by 13 January 2020. Authors of selected papers will be invited to the paper development workshop to be held at ADBI in Tokyo on 5 March 2020.

ADBI and INSEAD will provide travel support to one author per paper. Authors receiving support from ADBI must be citizens of Asian Development Bank member countries.

Inquiries may be directed to Filippo di Mauro, National University of Singapore: [email protected]

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