Asian Economic Integration Report 2018

It covers the 48 regional members of the Asian Development Bank and analyzes regional as well as global economic linkages. The 2018 report’s special chapter “Toward Optimal Provision of Regional Public Goods in Asia and the Pacific” examines how collective action among countries can help find solutions to growing transnational development challenges. The special chapter also discusses how to best provide regional public goods that transcend the so-called “collective action problem” which occurs when individual interests are too weak on their own to drive cooperation on common issues.

Toward the Optimal Provision of Regional Public Goods in Asia and the Pacific

With growing economic interdependence and integration, the region increasingly faces development challenges that are transnational in nature, such as infrastructure connectivity within the region, environmental degradation and resource scarcity, and transnational health threats or infectious diseases. Regional public goods such as cross-border infrastructure, sustainable management of shared natural resources, and cross-border disease surveillance and control offer benefits beyond a single nation’s territory.