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During the past five years or so, most East Asian economies including the Philippines experienced a rising level of foreign exchange reserves and rapidly appreciating currencies both in nominal and real terms. One cause has been the resurgence of capital flows, which makes the issue of how to manage them relevant. However, the experience with regard to capital flows among East Asian economies is mixed and the level of capital flows to the region is proportionally less than that prior to the 1997 crisis. Another reason is the rise in current account surpluses. The Philippines has experienced both a return of capital inflows and a more favorable current account balance, with the latter largely due to remittances from overseas workers. However, like many other regional currencies, the appreciation of the peso is not commensurate to movements of the BOP accounts. Currencies in the region are reacting primarily to the general weakness of the US dollar, and global uncertainties have contributed to weak investment which in turn is another major reason behind the current account surplus of several economies including the Philippines. Policy measures at the domestic level can focus on reviving private investment, particularly channeling overseas remittances to more productive investment. Meanwhile, East Asian financial and monetary cooperation can also result in a unified front aimed at overhauling the unipolar global financial system.

Historically, economic transformation has been driven by the manufacturing sector. The latter has also been an important source of higher‐paying jobs because of higher productivity. In the Philippines, the service sector employs more college graduates whereas the manufacturing sector employs more high school graduates. It can be argued that a more dynamic manufacturing sector would have provided more higher‐paying jobs to the less‐educated workforce, thereby making poverty reduction faster in the Philippines. A major reason why the manufacturing sector stagnated is the inability to participate more intensively in regional production networks. This can be traced to lower inflows of foreign direct investment into the Philippines. At this juncture, the key policy issue is whether policymakers should focus on attracting more FDI. Unfortunately, the Philippines does not compare favorably to its neighbors in terms of factors that attract FDI, particularly physical infrastructure. However, it would be important to address some of these factors, especially those described as "supply‐side constraints" since they would also benefit other aspects of the economy including domestic investment.

Human capital development is important for economic growth. The main channel by which human capital can be enhanced is education, which is characterized by the issues of availability, access, and quality. Domestic reforms can be complemented by regional cooperation in education. The main mechanisms for regional cooperation are: People Exchange, Transnational Education, Information Exchange, Regulatory Reform, and Development Partnerships. The main argument in this paper is that the relevant mechanism for a particular economy - including what should be prioritized - depends on its position in the development ladder and history with regard to education attainment. The experience of Malaysia and the Philippines with regard to these mechanisms and education in general are compared with the expectation that other developing countries can draw lessons from this comparison. Malaysia's high economic growth in the past three decades has enabled it to implement an effective program in transnational education while the Philippines has failed to exploit its competency in the English language largely due to its poor record with regard to infrastructure development. What would be useful for the Philippines is to harness regional cooperation in order to effect regulatory reform. In particular, accreditation of colleges and universities in the Philippines is still voluntary while Malaysia has opened its universities to international standards. A long-run goal would be a regional agreement on education standards somewhat akin to a Free Trade Agreement. Meanwhile, developing countries can benefit from existing institutions like the ASEAN Universities Network and the ASEAN Quality Assurance Network in order to improve the quality of their education systems.

Many have argued that the major source of the existing global macroeconomic imbalances are the twin deficits of the United States (US). However, there is still a debate about whether the global imbalances indeed pose a significant threat to the world economy. This matter is settled by arguing that the global imbalances acted as a handmaiden to the 2008 financial crisis. One way to reduce global imbalances is to reform the international monetary system and reduce the role of the US dollar as a reserve currency. Robert Triffin was one of those critical of this exorbitant privilege granted to the US, which makes it both a system maker and privilege taker. The Triffin Dilemma captures the fundamental instability that underlies the dollar reserve system. However, there are major obstacles to this proposal. Some analysts including Triffin cited the US security umbrella as the primary reason the US and its major allies would want to retain the role of the dollar in global trade and finance despite the underlying inequities in the system. This is related to the imbalance in global governance which is largely US-centric. The imbalance in global governance is also reflected in the dominance of the US financial system brought about by the first-mover advantage. Because of the inertia brought about by the imbalance in global governance, economic arguments to reform the international monetary system are likely to be trumped by political reality. The paper analyzes whether current efforts in East Asia in terms of financial and monetary cooperation and rebalancing of economic growth could significantly mitigate the adverse impacts of a global system that will still be dominated by the US dollar in the foreseeable future. It also explains why the People's Republic of China (PRC) is unlikely to make significant unilateral adjustments to reduce global macroeconomic imbalances.

Many have argued that the major source of the existing global macroeconomic imbalances are the twin deficits of the United States (US). However, there is still a debate about whether the global imbalances indeed pose a significant threat to the world economy. This matter is settled by arguing that the global imbalances acted as a "handmaiden" to the 2008 financial crisis. One way to reduce global imbalances is to reform the international monetary system and reduce the role of the US dollar as a reserve currency. Robert Triffin was one of those critical of this "exorbitant" privilege granted to the US, which makes it both a system maker and privilege taker. The Triffin Dilemma captures the fundamental instability that underlies the dollar reserve system. However, there are major obstacles to this proposal. Some analysts including Triffin cited the US security umbrella as the primary reason the US and its major allies would want to retain the role of the dollar in global trade and finance despite the underlying inequities in the system. This is related to the imbalance in global governance which is largely US-centric. The imbalance in global governance is also reflected in the dominance of the US financial system brought about by the "first-mover advantage". Because of the inertia brought about by the imbalance in global governance, economic arguments to reform the international monetary system are likely to be trumped by political reality. The paper analyzes whether current efforts in East Asia in terms of financial and monetary cooperation and rebalancing of economic growth could significantly mitigate the adverse impacts of a global system that will still be dominated by the US dollar in the foreseeable future. It also explains why the People's Republic of China (PRC) is unlikely to make significant unilateral adjustments to reduce global macroeconomic imbalances.

In response to the 1997 East Asian financial crisis many schemes were initiated to reform the international financial architecture. The proposed reforms had two wide-ranging objectives: (i) to prevent currency and banking crises and better manage them when they occur; and (ii) to support adequate provision of net private and public flows to developing countries, particularly low-income ones. Unfortunately the progress has been uneven, asymmetric, and patchy. This is largely because the structural problems related to the supply side of capital flows have not been addressed, particularly the unipolar character of the global financial system. As a result, many East Asian economies face many of the same conditions that prevailed immediately prior to the crisis: huge capital inflows heavily tilted toward hot money, rapid appreciation of currencies in real terms, surging stock prices, and little policy space to implement countercyclical measures in the event of a crisis. The difference is that many countries have accumulated a large amount of foreign exchange reserves but at the expense of domestic investment and economic growth. In order to resolve the problems that are posed by volatile capital flows it is important to accelerate East Asian cooperation and integration, particularly with regard to the objective of using regional savings for regional infrastructure projects. Political rapprochement between China and Japan is a necessary condition both to move regional cooperation and integration forward and to overhaul the unipolar global financial system.

Intraregional trade and investment among the ASEAN+3 countries—and the entire East Asia—has been progressing at a robust pace over the past 25 years. The process of economic integration could be aptly described as "regionalization" or market-driven integration. In contrast, the European Union has followed 'regionalism' which refers to formal economic cooperation and economic arrangements. Over the past decade, efforts at promoting closer regionalism in East Asia have been stepped up for various reasons, including: i) a response to the experience and lessons of the 1997 financial crisis; ii) the gridlock in the Doha round, success of NAFTA, and expansion of the EU; and iii) the mitigation of political factors that prevented closer cooperation in the past, e.g. competition between China and Japan. However, the structure of East Asia regionalism should be analyzed carefully, in particular because the direct economic benefits of an East Asia FTA are questionable. Therefore, the configuration of the proposed East Asian Community must be developed pragmatically. It is argued that at this stage the EAFTA and EAC should still be promoted but with the view that their benefits are primarily political. The political windfall will likely lead to significant economic benefits, particularly in terms of narrowing the development gap in the region and advancing common interests in a global-rules setting. The political and institutional imperatives of establishing the EAFTA or EAC at this stage depend largely on whether countries of the region seek to expand economic ties or whether they would want to secure the political gains from closer integration and cooperation.

Competitiveness is technically a firm level concept. However, it is oftentimes extended to the national level--the idea of a country's 'international competitiveness' with the following analogies: market share-->export share of country; price-->real effective exchange rate or unit labor cost; profitability-->long-run economic growth. The concept of national competitiveness is faulty, in the words of Paul Krugman it has become a 'dangerous obsession.' However, national or government policies do have an impact on firm level competitiveness. The only concept related to firm level competitiveness that can be extended to the national level without ambiguity is technological capability. Meanwhile, the Global Competitiveness Report (GCR) presents two measures of national competitiveness: the Global Competitiveness Index (GCI) and the Current Competitiveness index (CCI). The GCI is simply a measure of a country's potential for economic growth which is not equivalent to competitiveness. The CCI is an exercise in tautology. It simply shows that countries with a higher level of development are 'more competitive.' The issue of the appropriate development policies is not addressed. Since technological capability is at the heart of competitiveness, countries must address this issue squarely. One course of action is to adopt a strategic approach to foreign direct investment--as opposed to a passive strategy--similar to what Malaysia and Singapore did.

Regional economic integration in East Asia has gained momentum in the aftermath of the 1997 financial crisis and the escalation of international terrorism. In the first essay, the integration process in Europe and East Asia is compared briefly. This is followed by a discussion on the expansion process by the European Union and how East Asia can learn from this. In particular, the concern is how to integrate the CMLV countries in a meaningful way. Proposals deal with the impact of freer movement of natural persons, the Japan-ASEAN comprehensive economic partnership agreements, and the viability of core labor standards. The second essay is more straightforward. Criteria for successful exchange rate coordination are specified and the paper determines whether the Philippines has satisfied the criteria. The conclusion is that while monetary policy has been fairly stable, the weak fiscal position will prevent the Philippines from participating in regional exchange rate coordination.

The recent spate of banking and currency crises has underscored the need to develop early warning systems. These are based on economic indicators of vulnerability, which can be identified from models and theories of crises. First generation models focus on the inconsistency of macroeconomic policies and the exchange rate peg. Second generation models revolve around the possibility of self-fulfilling crises and multiple equilibria. Meanwhile, the 1997 East Asian financial crisis spawned research on third-generation models, which integrated balance sheets of banks and corporations in the framework of second-generation models. The next step is then to combine all the variables in a meaningful way that will allow the prediction of economic crises. There are two popular approaches: the probability model using limited dependent variables estimation and the signals approach of Kaminsky and Reinhart. Both these methodologies have their own advantages and disadvantages but their usefulness is constrained by the availability and timeliness of high-frequency data.

The basic framework of the PIDS Annual Macroeconometric Model is presented in this paper. After outlining the general philosophy of the model, the discussion focuses on the production sector of the model in order to trace the manner by which macroeconomic policies affect relative prices and sectoral allocation of resources. The theoretical framework is largely derived from Constantino, Yap, Butiong and dela Paz (1990a, 1990b). The details of the PIDS-NEDA model are reported in these references while the most recent reestimation is presented in Reyes and Yap (1993). A section in the main text lists the major changes that are introduced in the 2000 version of the model.

Using a three-gap model, it can be shown that a reduction in the tariff level will lead to an unambiguous decline in the GDP growth rate if it results in a reduction of the surplus of the government's primary account. Empirical results using Philippine data show that this condition is satisfied. Since FDI is crucial in breaking the economic gridlock brought about by capital inflows, policy makers should determine whether greater macroeconomic instability that results from larger fiscal and trade deficits can be offset by the more liberalized economic environment in attracting FDI. It may also be the case, however, the greater macroeconomic instability will eventually countervail any benefits from microeconomic reform.