The impact of the Asia crisis has contributed to the debate about the need for regulation of global markets. This book outlines the events leading up to and during the Financial Crisis of 1997 and assesses the responses of the financial contagion.

This book analyzes the Asian financial crisis of 1997-1999. In addition to the issues of financial system restructuring, export-led recovery, crony capitalism, and competitiveness in Asian manufacturing, it examines six key Asian economies--China, Indonesia, Japan, Korea, Malaysia, and Thailand. The book makes clear that there is little particularly Asian about the Asian financial crisis. The generic character of the crisis became clear during 1998, when it reached Russia, South Africa, and Brazil. The spread of the crisis reflects the rapid arrival of global capitalism in a world economy not used to the integration of the advanced and developing countries. The book makes recommendations for reform, including the formation of regional monetary bodies, the establishment of an international bankruptcy system, the democratization of international organizations, the infusion of public money to revive the financial and corporate sectors in Pacific Asia, and stronger supervision over financial institutions. The book emphasizes a mismatch in Pacific Asia between investment in physical hardware (e.g., factories and machinery) and in social software (e.g., scientific research centers and administrative and judiciary systems). In a world of growing international competitiveness, concerns over governance will weigh increasingly heavily on unreformed Asian countries. The long-term competitiveness of Asia rests on its getting its institutions right.

The novel coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic was reported in China in December 2019, and later spread to other parts of the world. Countries in Southeast Asia were some of the first nations affected by the pandemic due to their geographical proximities and trade relations with China. In January 2020, the virus spread to some countries within the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). The number of confirmed cases kept increasing within ASEAN and other countries of the world. Consequently, countries in ASEAN introduced preventive and containment measures to cope with the pandemic, which include quarantines, lockdowns, restrictions of movements and large gatherings, as well as school and business closures.Beyond the efforts of preventing and containing the spread of the virus, ASEAN's most significant challenges are the social and economic crisis of historic proportions that are beginning to unfold. COVID-19 pandemic has brought interruptions in all sectors of ASEAN economies. It is, therefore, imperative to assess the extent to which the pandemic has impacted the social and economic aspects of the region. This book intends to highlight the social and economic impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic in ASEAN and suggest ways on how to mitigate them. It covers how the shocks from COVID-19 have impacted production, supply chains, demand, commodity prices, consumer behaviour, financial markets, employment, services, transportation and community, and the various policies that ASEAN authorities should put in place to mitigate the effects of the pandemic.

Examines the rapidly expanding economic relations between ASEAN and China in recent years, covering trade, investments, economic challenges, competition and opportunities in the various sectors of the two economies.

This book is a collection of high-impact papers accepted and presented at the 2019 Vietnam’s Business and Economics Research Conference (VBER2019) organised by Ho Chi Minh City Open University held on 18th–20th July 2019. The Special Issue is associated with a broad coverage of the contemporary issues in Business and Economics in Vietnam and other emerging markets reflecting a key theme of VBER2019: Vietnam’s Place in the Asia Pacific Region. A total of 14 papers were published from more than the 120 submissions to the VBER2019 Conference. Published papers had been undergone a rigorous reviewing process conducted by the Journal of Risk and Financial Management. The papers incorporated in this book address contemporary issues in business and economics from Vietnam and other emerging markets in the Asian region from various angles such as economics, finance, and statistics to management science. At the time of writing this note, some of the papers have attracted more than 1000 downloads in 3 months. In particular, a paper on “Foreign Direct Investment and Economic Growth from Developing Countries in the Short Run and Long Run” by Trang Thi-Huyen Dinh and her team has attracted almost 6000 downloads in 3 months. These statistics indicate that the papers published in this Special Issue have attracted the wide interest of readers. Among these 14 published papers, three main areas of important contemporary issues in Business and Economics in the Asian region can be identified. First, a block of papers deals with various important and fundamental issues in the emerging markets the Asian region, from exchange rate regime, financial inclusion, and financial development to energy consumption and environmental degradation. On the issue of CO2 emissions, energy consumption and economic growth in the ASEAN, Vo, Vo, and Le utilized various time series econometrics approaches. Key findings from this paper indicate that there are no long-run relationships among carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions, energy consumption, renewable energy, population growth, and economic growth in the Philippines and Thailand, but a relationship does exist in Indonesia, Myanmar, and Malaysia. Loo, in his paper on financial inclusion for the ASEAN, concluded that advancing internet capability and availability present investors an opportunity to offer financial technology or Fintech to meet the need for financial services in this digital era. Second, a challenge in quantitative studies for a single country, such as Vietnam, with limited data is generally noted. However, various empirical studies on Vietnam’s business and economics issues have been conducted. Nguyen, Quan, and Pham examined the cultural distance and entry mode of foreign direct investment in Vietnam. A key finding from their paper is that when there is a great cultural difference between Vietnam and their home country, foreign-invested firms prefer wholly owned subsidiaries over equity joint ventures. Within the Vietnamese market, Pham, Vo, Ho, and McAleer conducted a study on the issue of corporate financial distress. The authors conclude that the corporate financial distress prediction model, which includes accounting factors with macroeconomic indicators, performs much better than alternative models. In addition, the evidence confirms that the global financial crisis (GFC) had a damaging impact on each sector, with the Health & Education sector demonstrating the most impressive recovery post-GFC, and the utilities sector recording a dramatic increase in bankruptcies post-GFC. At another extreme of the spectrum, Van and Nguyen considered that competitive context, social influences, the understanding of managers about corporate social responsibility (CSR), and the internal environment of companies are the four drivers of CSR. The authors also argued that in the four drivers, competitive context has the strongest impact on adopting CSR. Third, last but not least, various papers focus on an important aspect of public finance. For an example, Pham, Pham, and Ly documented the effect of double taxation treaties on the bilateral trade of Vietnam with ASEAN member states, thereby making an extensive comparison with its EU partner countries. Their findings indicate the significant contributions of the tax treaties to Vietnam’s trade performance, not exclusively with ASEAN but also with EU partner countries. In addition, regarding public finance for Vietnam, Nguyen, Vo, Ho, and Vo investigated the contribution of fiscal decentralisation to economic growth across provinces in Vietnam. For the first time in Vietnam, the fiscal decentralisation index together its two subcomponents, including fiscal importance and fiscal autonomy, are developed. Findings from this paper indicate that while fiscal importance and an overall level of fiscal decentralisation have provided negative impact on provincial economic growth, fiscal autonomy has a positive impact on economic growth across provinces in Vietnam.