ECONOMIC  REGIONALIZATION  IN  THE  ASIA-PACIFIC:

                    CHALLENGES  TO  ECONOMIC  COOPERATION
 

                                      M. DUTTA
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

January 1999
 
 
 
 
 
 

Published by
Edward Elgar Publishing Ltd
Cheltenham
Glos GL50 1UA,   (U.K.)
 &
Northampton,  MA 01060 (USA)
 
 
 
 

ISBN  1 85898 825 X
 
 
 
 


“This original and comprehensive book ( thirty-one chapters in four parts  pp. 318)  provides a unique insight into the development of economic regionalization, with special reference to the  Asia-Pacific. It presents international globalization strategies from a historical perspective and then analyzes the effects on the development of Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC). Focusing on APEC itself, the author provides a detailed  investigation  into its organization and agenda, and thorough personal conferences with some of the most influential people who have worked on APEC.

Professor Dutta argues that the core of emerging new economic regionalization  must relate to (a) a map-of-the-world view of the region, and (b) an intraregional, multilateral, cooperative effort to map an economic region on to the geographic region.

Economic regions formed before World War II such as center-periphery models and the North-South divide have not been as successful as formal arrangements. At the beginning of the 1960s, Western Europe gave birth to a unique model  of  economic regionalization, now known as the European Union. Economic regionalization in the Asia-Pacific historically followed the Western European experiments and eventually developed into APEC.

The author examines two major challenges to regionalization in the Asia-Pacific, firstly the limited macroeconomic coordination and secondly the geographical coverage of formal arrangements.  Additionally, the institutional growth of APEC was heavily influenced  by the now disbanded Eminent Persons' Group (EPG) ….”