Financial Integration in East Asia: How Far? How Much Further to Go?

Despite numerous empirical studies examining various facets of the topic, the degree of intraregional financial integration in East Asia remains a matter of vigorous debate. This paper offers a selective survey of the recent empirical literature on financial integration, the focus being on alternative definitions of financial integration and measurement issues and results. The focus is on the ASEAN–5 plus 3 or APT economic group (i.e. Indonesia, Thailand, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, Korea, China and Japan) as well as Hong Kong and Chinese Taipei. These are the economies that have consciously attempted to intensify intraregional monetary and financial cooperation in the last few years, particularly since the East Asian crisis of 1997-98.