Asian Economic Policy Review最新文献

{"title":"Comment on “Construction and Opening Effects of a Large-Scale Bridge Project on Real Estate Prices: Evidence From the Mumbai Trans-Harbor Link”","authors":"Manabu Nose","doi":"10.1111/aepr.70037","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/aepr.70037","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Transport infrastructure improves market access and can thereby reshape productivity, commuting patterns, land values, and spatial inequality. Evaluating its economic impact remains a central policy challenge, especially in developing-country cities. Based on a selective literature review on the evaluation of transport infrastructure, Ashida et al. (<span>2026</span>) provide an empirical study of the Mumbai Trans-Harbor Link (MTHL), a major bridge project that warrants careful evaluation given its potential to reshape commuting patterns, urban congestion, and land markets.</p><p>Their results suggest that the implementation of the MTHL was capitalized into land values in Mumbai City District near the bridge, beginning around its construction phase. Using Annual Statement of Rates (ASR) data, Ashida et al. find that benchmark land prices in 2025 rose more for parcels located within the closest band to the new bridge link compared to parcels in more distant control districts within Mumbai City. This pattern is present in both an event study with a continuous treatment and in a piecewise linear function model. When suburban areas are included, the estimated effects are attenuated with strong nonlinearity in the effect across districts farther from the MTHL, possibly due to its interaction with the existing urban transport network.</p><p>To interpret these findings, one useful framework is the Tiebout-Oates capitalization hypothesis. In this view, local public goods are capitalized into property values through individuals' sorting into their preferred community by “voting with their feet”. The MTHL can therefore be interpreted as a local infrastructure that enhances market access and raises households' willingness to pay for nearby properties. This approach contrasts with related studies, such as Donaldson and Hornbeck (<span>2016</span>) and Heblich et al. (<span>2020</span>), which emphasize general equilibrium forces—productivity and commuting behavior—that respond to lower trade or transport costs and, in turn, reshape rental values of land over space.</p><p>Ashida et al.'s main contribution lies in the construction and use of parcel-level ASR data by property type to approximate land prices in a setting where transaction-level data are scarce. Their paper offers an important example of how administrative benchmark data can be used to study the local effects of large-scale infrastructure projects. In addition, analyzing the mechanism behind the estimated effect through the lens of the capitalization hypothesis, combined with the unique data, could potentially be a novel contribution of the paper. In this comment, I would like to highlight methodological issues and unique institutional contexts that are worth further discussion.</p><p>First, although the compilation of land price data through web scraping and geocoding is commendable, it is important to recognize that ASR values serve as administrative benchmarks used for stamp duty and regist","PeriodicalId":45430,"journal":{"name":"Asian Economic Policy Review","volume":"21 2","pages":"221-222"},"PeriodicalIF":4.8,"publicationDate":"2026-07-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/aepr.70037","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148532879","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Comment on “Trade and FDI Policies in an Interdependent World: Lessons From East Asia”","authors":"Akira Sasahara","doi":"10.1111/aepr.70028","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/aepr.70028","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Chen et al. (<span>2026</span>) provide a theoretical analysis, an empirical analysis, and a discussion of studies that contribute to our understanding of how cross-country interactions spill over to other parts of the world. Since the late 2010s, the global trend has been turning backward: tariff rates have risen, geopolitical tensions have intensified, and policy uncertainty has increased. Chen et al. (<span>2026</span>) give relevant insights into the current unharmonized world.</p><p>Section 2.3 of Chen et al. (<span>2026</span>) summarizes key empirical findings from Chen et al. (<span>2025</span>), who investigate how anti-dumping duties imposed on China affected Chinese exports to countries that imposed them and to third countries. Section 3 summarizes key results from Alviarez et al. (<span>2022</span>), who examine the effect of China's foreign direct investment (hereafter FDI) policy on Japanese multinational firms' operations in China and Japan. Section 4 summarizes key results in Chen et al. (<span>2022</span>), who examine the effect of the 2012 island dispute between Japan and China on Japanese multinational firms' operations in China.</p><p>The first study, Chen et al. (<span>2025</span>), shows that the effects of anti-dumping duties on exports from the imposing country to third countries differ between the country level and the firm level, and this difference arises from firms' entry margins. The second study, Alviarez et al. (<span>2022</span>), highlights the importance of large multinational firms facilitating sectoral reallocation from manufacturing to services in response to FDI policy shifts. The third study, Chen et al. (<span>2022</span>), shows that the island dispute reduced investment by Japanese multinational firms in China, and that their expectations of future sales play a key role in explaining the decline. Thus, all three studies reviewed in Chen et al. (<span>2026</span>) advance our understanding of how multinational firms shape the global economy and give related insights associated with ongoing uncertainty arising from, for example, the US trade policy, rising geopolitical risks, and restructuring global value chains due to the uncertainty.</p><p>Chen et al.'s (<span>2026</span>) section 2.2 develops a three-country model in which countries A, B, and C compete in a Cournot fashion. It examines how the unilateral imposition of a tariff by country A on country B, <span></span><math>\u0000 <semantics>\u0000 <mrow>\u0000 <msub>\u0000 <mi>τ</mi>\u0000 <mi>BA</mi>\u0000 </msub>\u0000 <mo>></mo>\u0000 <mn>0</mn>\u0000 </mrow>\u0000 </semantics></math>, affects trade flows across countries, clarifying three channels: trade creation, trade destruction, and trade deflection.</p><p>One of my original comments pertained to the four equations that summarize trade flows across count","PeriodicalId":45430,"journal":{"name":"Asian Economic Policy Review","volume":"21 2","pages":"145-146"},"PeriodicalIF":4.8,"publicationDate":"2026-07-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/aepr.70028","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148533313","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Comment on “Connectivity Gains From Regional Integration in the Greater Mekong Subregion”","authors":"Shujiro Urata","doi":"10.1111/aepr.70039","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/aepr.70039","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Building transportation infrastructure such as roads and ports has long been recognized as contributing to economic development and growth, as it increases and improves the connectivity of economic activities. Many empirical studies examine the impact of transportation infrastructure on economic development, and most find positive effects. Despite the large number of studies, however, only a few have conducted detailed and careful analyses supported by solid theoretical foundations and employing appropriate empirical methodologies with highly disaggregated data.</p><p>Elhan-Kayalar et al. (<span>2026</span>) investigate the impact of road construction on economic activities and market integration through both domestic and international trade in the People's Republic of China (PRC). They focus on two different road construction projects: one involving the nationwide network of high-grade expressways in China; and the other concerning the Kunming–Bangkok Expressway in the Greater Mekong Subregion (GMS), which includes Yunnan Province in China.</p><p>Elhan-Kayalar et al. adopt two different empirical approaches for the two cases: estimation of a gravity equation based on a general equilibrium model for the high-grade expressway case, and a difference-in-differences (DID) estimation method for the Kunming–Bangkok Expressway case. For the first analysis, they perform regression analysis with exports as the dependent variable and internal and external distances as explanatory variables, where internal distance is defined as the distance from the origin to the port and external distance as the distance from the port to the export destination. For the second analysis, they compare economic activity in Yunnan province before and after the construction of the Kunming–Bangkok Expressway by applying DID analysis.</p><p>In their analysis, Elhan-Kayalar et al. make effective use of a set of unique datasets. For trade flows, they use Chinese customs data, which includes information on the origin city of each exporting activity, the port through which the trade takes place, and the overseas destination of the exported goods. These data provide valuable information not only on international trade but also on internal trade flows within the PRC. The data also records the mode of transportation, the trade quantity, and value for each product category. To measure the road network, Elhan-Kayalar et al. use Chinese road network data and prefecture boundary data. To measure economic activity at the county level in Yunnan Province, they rely on Landsat satellite images and nighttime light (NTL) data.</p><p>Elhan-Kayalar et al.'s findings are numerous but may be summarized as follows. In the case of the high-grade expressways in China, they find that the ad valorem rates of domestic and international trade costs declined on average by 13.4% and 23.8%, respectively, resulting in a 14.34% increase in trade value between 2000 and 2011, a period during which many high-gra","PeriodicalId":45430,"journal":{"name":"Asian Economic Policy Review","volume":"21 2","pages":"180-181"},"PeriodicalIF":4.8,"publicationDate":"2026-07-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/aepr.70039","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148533752","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Comment on “Trade and FDI Policies in an Interdependent World: Lessons From East Asia”","authors":"Takafumi Kawakubo","doi":"10.1111/aepr.70025","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/aepr.70025","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Chen et al. (<span>2026</span>) provide timely evidence on how trade and foreign direct investment (FDI) policies generate spillovers that extend beyond the countries that implement them. At a time when geopolitical tensions, economic security concerns, and supply chain disruptions are reshaping the global economy, understanding these third-market effects is of first-order importance. By combining firm-level evidence, a conceptual framework, and a synthesis of several episodes in East Asia, Chen et al. (<span>2026</span>) demonstrate that policies designed as bilateral interventions—anti-dumping tariffs, FDI liberalization, or even politically induced uncertainty—propagate through global value chains (GVCs) and reshape production, employment, and investment decisions across multiple countries.</p><p>A central contribution of Chen et al. (<span>2026</span>) is that trade and investment policies cannot be evaluated within a purely bilateral framework once production is internationally fragmented. In a world characterized by multinational production and inter-market linkages, firm-level decisions transmit shocks across borders through entry, exit, and reorganization along supply chains. This emphasis on firm heterogeneity and network structure gives Chen et al. (<span>2026</span>) a coherent foundation that unifies otherwise distinct policy episodes.</p><p>Chen et al.'s (<span>2026</span>) first major contribution is to clarify the seemingly conflicting evidence on trade deflection versus trade depression. Earlier studies suggest that exporters targeted by tariffs redirect shipments to alternative markets. In contrast, other work documents broad export contractions. Drawing on detailed Chinese customs data and a difference-in-differences framework, Chen et al. (<span>2026</span>) reconcile these findings by distinguishing firm-level and aggregate-level responses. While surviving firms may successfully reallocate exports, the number of exporters declines on the extensive margin, producing an overall contraction in trade. This distinction between micro-level flexibility and macro-level fragility is particularly illuminating. It implies that aggregate trade resilience depends critically on entry and exit decisions, not merely on the intensive margin of surviving firms.</p><p>The accompanying three-country model further sharpens this insight. By embedding firm entry into an interdependent Cournot framework, Chen et al. (<span>2026</span>) show how unilateral tariffs can reduce total exports even when some firms expand in third markets. The model's tractability is valuable because it transparently illustrates how inter-market linkages amplify the contractionary effects of trade barriers. In doing so, the paper offers a theoretical lens through which recent episodes—such as the U.S.–China trade war—can be better understood.</p><p>The second contribution concerns the role of FDI policies in deepening international interdependence. Building on evidence f","PeriodicalId":45430,"journal":{"name":"Asian Economic Policy Review","volume":"21 2","pages":"143-144"},"PeriodicalIF":4.8,"publicationDate":"2026-07-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/aepr.70025","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148534407","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Supply Chain Diversification and Industrial Policies to Strengthen Economic Security","authors":"Yasuyuki Todo","doi":"10.1111/aepr.70029","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/aepr.70029","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Recently, global supply chains have been disrupted because of geopolitical factors and industrial policies induced by national security concerns. Under these circumstances, creating supply chain resilience and strengthening economic security are of great interest to researchers, policymakers, and business people. This study overviews the growing literature, both theoretically and empirically, on supply chain resilience and industrial policies and provides policy implications from the perspective of Asia, particularly Japan. The major means to create supply chain resilience include diversification of partners across like-minded countries (friendshoring) and (re)location of production facilities in the domestic economy (onshoring). For effective friendshoring, policies should provide information on foreign risks and markets to the private sector. For effective onshoring, industrial policies should promote competition within, openness of, and knowledge diffusion in the target industry. To further strengthen the effectiveness of these policies for supply chain resilience and economic security, multilateral cooperation among Asian countries is suggested.</p><p><b>JEL Classification:</b> F13, F51</p>","PeriodicalId":45430,"journal":{"name":"Asian Economic Policy Review","volume":"21 2","pages":"147-160"},"PeriodicalIF":4.8,"publicationDate":"2026-07-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/aepr.70029","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148532868","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Comment on “Infrastructure, Connectivity, and Regional Development: Evidence From a Spatial CGE Model of the North–South Commuter Railway”","authors":"Mizuki Kawabata","doi":"10.1111/aepr.70036","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/aepr.70036","url":null,"abstract":"&lt;p&gt;Bird et al. (&lt;span&gt;2026&lt;/span&gt;) provide a policy-relevant assessment of the North–South Commuter Railway (NSCR), one of the most important transport infrastructure projects currently being implemented in the Philippines. The paper uses a spatial computable general equilibrium (SCGE) model to examine how the NSCR may reshape economic activity across a large rail catchment area covering 119 cities and municipalities around Metro Manila and its surrounding regions. The model incorporates the location choices of households and firms, commuting costs, trade costs, land markets, and agglomeration economies and provides a framework for evaluating both the aggregate effects of the railway and its spatial and distributional consequences.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;The main message of Bird et al. (&lt;span&gt;2026&lt;/span&gt;) is clear: infrastructure alone is unlikely to generate substantial regional development. Bird et al. show that the NSCR by itself produces only modest gains in gross value added relative to the 2040 baseline. Additional transport infrastructure improves the spatial distribution of benefits, although aggregate gains remain limited. Larger effects arise when the railway is combined with reforms that allow land markets to accommodate urban development while protecting environmentally sensitive areas. Further gains can be obtained when land market reforms are combined with reductions in business costs in selected industrial clusters. These results suggest that transport infrastructure should be viewed as an enabling condition, rather than as a sufficient condition, for regional transformation.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;A major contribution of the paper by Bird et al. (&lt;span&gt;2026&lt;/span&gt;) is its integration of infrastructure, land use, and economic geography within a unified quantitative framework. Such an approach is valuable in rapidly urbanizing economies, where transport investments often interact with land constraints, housing markets, and the spatial allocation of firms and workers. The analysis shows that the benefits of transport infrastructure may be capitalized into land rents when land supply is constrained. The policy relevance of this result is direct: without complementary land use reforms, improved accessibility may raise land prices without generating commensurate increases in real economic activity or welfare. Bird et al. (&lt;span&gt;2026&lt;/span&gt;) therefore encourage closer coordination between transport planning and land use planning.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;The scenario-based structure of the analysis is helpful for interpreting the results. By comparing the NSCR alone, the NSCR with complementary infrastructure, the NSCR with land market reforms, and the NSCR with both land market reforms and reductions in business costs, the paper shows how different policy packages affect the magnitude and distribution of outcomes. The contrast between the scenarios brings out the complementarities among infrastructure, land availability, and the business environment. The results also suggest that adding m","PeriodicalId":45430,"journal":{"name":"Asian Economic Policy Review","volume":"21 2","pages":"200-201"},"PeriodicalIF":4.8,"publicationDate":"2026-07-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/aepr.70036","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148522860","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Comment on “Supply Chain Diversification and Industrial Policies to Strengthen Economic Security”","authors":"Keiko Ito","doi":"10.1111/aepr.70032","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/aepr.70032","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":45430,"journal":{"name":"Asian Economic Policy Review","volume":"21 2","pages":"163-164"},"PeriodicalIF":4.8,"publicationDate":"2026-07-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148534178","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Comment on “Supply Chain Diversification and Industrial Policies to Strengthen Economic Security”","authors":"Cassey Lee","doi":"10.1111/aepr.70033","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/aepr.70033","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":45430,"journal":{"name":"Asian Economic Policy Review","volume":"21 2","pages":"161-162"},"PeriodicalIF":4.8,"publicationDate":"2026-07-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148534177","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Comment on ‘Infrastructure, Connectivity, and Regional Development: Evidence From a Spatial CGE Model of the North–South Commuter Railway’","authors":"Kentaro Nakajima","doi":"10.1111/aepr.70034","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/aepr.70034","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":45430,"journal":{"name":"Asian Economic Policy Review","volume":"21 2","pages":"202-203"},"PeriodicalIF":4.8,"publicationDate":"2026-07-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148534375","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Sustainable Finance in Asia: Editors' Overview","authors":"Caroline Flammer,&nbsp;Takatoshi Ito,&nbsp;Kazumasa Iwata,&nbsp;Colin McKenzie,&nbsp;Shujiro Urata","doi":"10.1111/aepr.70023","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/aepr.70023","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":45430,"journal":{"name":"Asian Economic Policy Review","volume":"21 1","pages":"5-13"},"PeriodicalIF":7.0,"publicationDate":"2025-12-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"146007893","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}