Regional Public Goods in Asia and Europe

By Asian Development Bank

As economies become more integrated, development challenges are becoming more transnational. The provision of regional public goods (RPGs) can address such challenges. RPGs can play an important role in sustainable economic development at the national and regional levels by addressing common issues across borders. This report reviews the concept of RPGs along with the challenges and benefits of their provision in Asia and Europe. It presents case studies and a comparative analysis of the arrangements taken toward RPG provision in both regions, offering lessons for Asia.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Asian Development Bank
• Release date: Jan 1, 2021
• ISBN: 9789292626693

Book preview

REGIONAL PUBLIC GOODS IN ASIA AND EUROPE

JANUARY 2021

Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 IGO license (CC BY 3.0 IGO)

© 2021 Asian Development Bank

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Some rights reserved. Published in 2021.

ISBN 978-92-9262-668-6 (print); 978-92-9262-669-3 (electronic); 978-92-9262-670-9 (ebook)

Publication Stock No. TCS210010-2

DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.22617/TCS210010-2

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Notes:

In this publication, $ refers to the United States dollar and € to the euro.

ADB recognizes Saigon as Ho Chi Minh City.

Cover design by Michael Cortes.

Contents

Tables and Figures

Foreword

Under the ongoing coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic, regional public goods are gaining even greater importance as greater internationalization of economic activities creates cross-border spillovers. When nations engage together in the production and provision of public goods, they generate advances and efficiencies that transcend national interests and help end chronic undersupply of solutions to shared regional problems. For example, in health, a disease outbreak underscores the value of regional public goods such as regional surveillance and control of infectious diseases, and ultimately the importance of elimination in vulnerable countries. Financial contagion transmitted from other countries and regions underlines the value of financial stability and efforts to safeguard it as a regional public good. Agreement among regional groupings to promote more open trade can be also considered a regional public good, while cross-border infrastructure developments such as energy or transport connectivity acknowledge the regional benefits of lowering trade costs among neighboring countries.

This study discusses the theory and policy implementation of regional public goods with useful case studies in Europe and Asia. In a regional setting, eliciting contributions toward collective action in the absence of a transnational authority can be a struggle, or it is often difficult in practice to clearly delineate the boundaries of benefits shared among nations. The case studies highlight how various regional arrangements can be formed to arrive at a functional, if not optimal, provision of regional public goods. Moreover, spillover benefits or costs that cross borders also influence how regional cooperation can be shaped to make the production and provision of regional public goods more effective.

Regional public goods are one of the main pillars of the operational priority