The member states of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation have set as a target the achievement of an economic union by 2020. Reaching this goal will require greater levels of monetary cooperation. How should this be achieved? Data from South Asia suggest that member states have minor trade linkages and face asymmetrical patterns of shocks. This paper concludes that, absent a clear road map for monetary cooperation, the present process must be structured so as to be harmonized with the level of regional economic integration.

"The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic marks the most significant, singular global disruption since World War II, with health, economic, political, and security implications that will ripple for years to come." -Global Trends 2040 (2021) Global Trends 2040-A More Contested World (2021), released by the US National Intelligence Council, is the latest report in its series of reports starting in 1997 about megatrends and the world's future. This report, strongly influenced by the COVID-19 pandemic, paints a bleak picture of the future and describes a contested, fragmented and turbulent world. It specifically discusses the four main trends that will shape tomorrow's world: - Demographics-by 2040, 1.4 billion people will be added mostly in Africa and South Asia. - Economics-increased government debt and concentrated economic power will escalate problems for the poor and middleclass. - Climate-a hotter world will increase water, food, and health insecurity. - Technology-the emergence of new technologies could both solve and cause problems for human life. Students of trends, policymakers, entrepreneurs, academics, journalists and anyone eager for a glimpse into the next decades, will find this report, with colored graphs, essential reading.

Asian economies continue to be subject to new shocks: US monetary policy tightening, the adoption of negative-interest-rate policies by central banks all over the world, the slowdown of the People's Republic of China, and the sharp drop in oil and other commodity prices. All these highlight the vulnerability of the region to volatile trade and capital flows even as the global and Asian regional financial architecture evolves. This volume analyzes the vulnerabilities of Asian economies to external economic and financial shocks and assesses the performance of Asian regional institutions in financial surveillance and cooperation. It also evaluates ongoing reforms of the global financial architecture, including the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the Financial Stability Board, and reviews the experience of the "Troika" (European Commission, European Central Bank, and the IMF) in managing the European sovereign debt and banking crisis. Based on these, the book develops valuable recommendations to strengthen the Asian regional financial architecture and improve cooperation with global multilateral institutions.

Readers will come to appreciate the strength and dignity of Berneta Ringer, a true Western heroine as Doig celebrates his mother's life after finding a cache of her letters, photographs, and childhood writings. It begins with her first winter living in a tent in Montana's Crazy Mountains to the ravages of the Depression on a ranch on Falkner Creek.

South Asian leaders have made it a priority to tackle key regional issues such as poverty, environment degradation, trade and investment barriers and food insecurity, among others.

This book provides fresh insights into the theory and policy of regional and multilateral trade from the perspective of developing countries. With the collapse of talks at the WTO Doha round, regionalism has proliferated in the form of Regional Trade Agreements (RTAs). This in turn has raised a number of critical issues in global trade policy debate. Given the implication of RTAs and WTO negotiations on economic development, the book emphasises that it is essential to examine the macro and micro effects of international trade flows on welfare, revenue, poverty and environment, particularly in the light of diversities, heterogeneities and limited financial capacity of developing countries. It discusses various issues of trade, investment, poverty, gender and legal dimensions in the regional and multilateral framework and is a useful guide to formulation of trade and economic policies for the benefit of developing countries. The book will be of primary interest to those in economics, commerce and management, and will be a useful reference for alternative research in this area.

This study investigates the role of India's economy in explaining the observed growth in South Asia, taking into consideration other sources of growth endogenous to the countries in the region. Since a review of key variables indicates that India's bilateral trade and financial linkages with South Asian countries (SAC) are relatively weak, the paper analyses the spillover effects by focusing on growth more generally with India's growth as an explanatory variable. The results of the panel growth regressions suggest that India's growth has good explanatory power for growth in other SAC after 1995.

Economic Integration in South Asia: Issues and Pathways is one of the volumes of the series titled, Imagine a New South Asia, presented by ActionAid International Asia. This volume envisions a new South Asia, free from human deprivation and poverty, where countries will become successful, proud and inclusive societies. This book demonstrates how South Asian countries can learn from the best practices in the region as well as from their failures, and also by trying to emulate the successful strategies of introducing egalitarian education and health systems of East Asia, China and Southeast Asian countries. Rich in analysis and research, this volume seeks an alternative people-centred perspective, and takes into account all those voices that have so long been unheard in policy-making processes through reviews of case studies. Not only will the findings of this volume be useful in conducting campaigns for appropriate policy and mindset changes, but these will also, eventually, make the emergence of a highly integrated South Asia truly possible.