Much of the analysis of infrastructure's impact on trade costs focuses on conditions in developed countries. This book makes an invaluable contribution to our understanding by examining the situation in developing Asia, the world's most populous and fastest growing region.

This study analyzes and draws policy implications from infrastructure's central role in lowering Asia's trade costs. Infrastructure is shown to be a cost-effective means of lowering trade costs and thereby promoting regional growth and integration.This book combines thematic and country studies, while breaking new ground in quantifying infrastructure's impact on Asia's trade costs.

The contributors examine empirical estimates of Asia's trade costs and infrastructure's influence on those costs while also contributing to a better understanding of the region's logistics challenges. The book includes interesting case studies of rapid growth and congestion (in PRC), inland transportation challenges (India), port competition in an archipelago (Indonesia) and transportation modal switching as value added rises (Malaysia) are policy- and project-relevant in their own right.

The analysis and policy implications in this book will be of interest to trade and infrastructure policy makers, academics at graduate and higher levels involved in economic development or Asian studies, as well as the broader development community.

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Edited by
Douglas H. Brooks
Senior Research Fellow, Asian Development Bank Institute, Japan
David Hummels
Professor of Economics, Krannert School of Management, Purdue University and Research Associate, National Bureau of Economic Research, USA
A JOINT PUBLICATION OF THE ASIAN DEVELOPMENT BANK INSTITUTE AND EDWARD ELGAR PUBLISHING

CONTENTS
List of contributors vii
Foreword by Masahiro Kawai ix
List of abbreviations xi
1 Infrastructure’s role in lowering Asia’s trade costs 1
Douglas H. Brooks
2 Trends in Asian trade: implications for transport infrastructure and trade costs 17
David Hummels
3 Trade infrastructure and trade costs: a study of selected Asian ports 37
Jon Haveman, Adina Ardelean and Christopher Thornberg
4 Empirical estimates of transportation costs: options for enhancing Asia’s trade 73
Prabir De
5 Port competitiveness: a case study of Semarang and Surabaya, Indonesia 113
Arianto A. Patunru, Nanda Nurridzki and Rivayani
6 Infrastructure and trade costs in Malaysia: the importance of FDI and exports 148
Tham Siew Yean, Evelyn Devadason and Loke Wai Heng
7 Infrastructure development in a fast-growing economy: the People’s Republic of China 182
Liqiang Ma and Jinkang Zhang
8 Trade transportation costs in South Asia: an empirical investigation 230
Prabir De
Index 261

FORWARD
Trade-related infrastructure has given Asia’s economies access to, and made them accessible for, trade with the rest of the world. Growth has both followed from and contributed to this process. The same has become true for regional cooperation and integration. The Asian Development Bank (ADB) and its subsidiary for research and capacity-building, the ADB Institute (ADBI), have contributed to expansion of the region’s infrastructure and understanding of how that infrastructure contributes to trade and resulting growth in the region.

While trade is primarily a private sector activity, much of it relies on infrastructure which, in turn, is primarily financed by the public sector in acknowledgement of trade’s contribution to growth, development and poverty reduction. Infrastructure, both physical and institutional, facilitates trade by lowering the costs of moving goods, information and payments from economic agents in one country to those in another.

As tariff barriers have fallen in successive GATT/WTO (General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade/World Trade Organization) rounds of negotiations, infrastructure-related trade costs have become comparatively more important. At the same time, production and trade patterns have evolved as technology and infrastructure have lowered absolute and relative trade costs while timeliness of delivery has increased in importance as a factor in demand. ...

CONTRIBUTORS
Adina Ardelean, Lecturer, Santa Clara University, CA, USA

Douglas H. Brooks, Senior Research Fellow, Asian Development Bank Institute, Tokyo, Japan

Prabir De, Fellow, Research and Information System for Developing Countries, New Delhi, India

Evelyn Devadason, Senior Lecturer, Faculty of Economics and Administration, University of Malaya, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

Jon Haveman, Principal, Beacon Economics, San Rafael, CA, USA

Loke Wai Heng, Senior Lecturer, Department of Economics, Faculty of Economics and Administration, University of Malaya, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

David Hummels, Professor of Economics, Krannert School of Management, Purdue University, Indiana; Research Associate, National Bureau of Economic Research, Cambridge, MA, USA

Liqiang Ma, Associate General Manager, Treasurer’s Department, China  Vanke Co., Ltd., Shenzhen, People’s Republic of China

Nanda Nurridzki, Researcher, Institute for Economic and Social Research, Department of Economics, University of Indonesia (LPEM-FEUI), Jakarta, Indonesia

Arianto A. Patunru, Research Director, Institute for Economic and Social Research, Department of Economics, University of Indonesia (LPEMFEUI), Jakarta, Indonesia

Rivayani, Researcher, Institute for Economic and Social Research, Department of Economics, University of Indonesia (LPEM-FEUI), Jakarta, Indonesia

Tham Siew Yean, Director and Principal Research Fellow, Institute of Malaysian and International Studies, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, Bangi, Selangor, Malaysia

Christopher Thornberg, Principal, Beacon Economics, Los Angeles, CA, USA

Jinkang Zhang, Associate Professor of Economics, Yunnan University of Finance and Economics, People’s Republic of China

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