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International migration is considered an essential element of economic integration. Yet, the intraregional movement of people and labor in Asia and the Pacific has stagnated in recent years in contrast to the steadily rising flow of goods, services, and investment. This paper examines the key factors driving the movement of people from and within the region using bilateral international migrant stock data and evaluates whether some key indicators of economic integration between origin and destination economies have additive effects on this movement/these movements. Our analysis shows that commonly known determinants such as income differences; population size; and political, geographical, and cultural proximities between the migrant origin and destination countries are associated with greater movement, along with the growing share of older population in destination economies and the similarities in the level of educational attainment. The paper also finds that cross-border migration is affected, in varied directions, by the degree of economic integration between the origin and destination economies, especially through bilateral trade and value chain links. The offshoring of production—and hence jobs and other economic opportunities—to migrant origin countries suppresses outmigration, but the expected rise in the origin country income will eventually promote migration by relaxing financial constraints.

The Mahabub Hossain Panel Data (MHPD) was initiated in 1988 and maintained by and named after the late Dr. Mahabub Hossain, a well-known agricultural and development economist who led a number of reputed organizations in Bangladesh (Bangladesh Institute of Development Studies and BRAC) and in the region (International Rice Research Institute). This background report portrays the historical context, sampling evolution, survey structure and methodology, and academic and policy contributions of the MHPD with some lessons learned for the next step forward. The MHPD has tracked rural households for a period of over three decades (1988-2014) with five waves of household surveys covering over 2,800 households and has collected a wide range of information on household composition, schooling of household members, assets, cropping intensity and patterns including cost and return, employment and income, consumption, participation in different government and nongovernment programs. To produce this document, we reviewed several books and journal articles authored by Mahabub Hossain and related academic papers and documents and collated information on MHPD, including (i) mapping out information on past and ongoing panel or cross-sectional household survey data series in Bangladesh; (ii) undertaking the review of all past rounds of MHPD survey documents, such as survey implementation plans, questionnaires, codebooks, databases, and processed data; (iii) consulting relevant stakeholders, including the past implementers of the surveys and the users of the data as needed to validate documented information; (iv) taking stock of the contribution of MHPD to academic literature and policy development; and (v) drawing a number of lessons learned for future data collection and policy making. The report aims to i) serve as a comprehensive reference document for scholars and policymakers who wish to understand MHPD for possible use in their research; ii) provide a comprehensive baseline from which we can consider ways to enhance MHPD further to continue contributing to understanding the economic and social issues of today and near future. By compiling all associated research work based on MHPD, the report also offers a historical landscape of Bangladesh's social and economic development and a credible explanation for the Bangladesh development model for global comparison.

This paper examines the countercyclicality of remittance inflows to the countries in Asia and the Pacific. It also aims to identify major determinants of remittances using gravity models of bilateral remittances. We find that bilateral remittance inflows are countercyclical against the business cycle of a remittance-receiving country relative to a sending country. The degree to which remittances are countercyclical is found to vary significantly by subregion: Central Asia and Southeast Asia, including many remittance-dependent countries, show stronger countercyclicality than other subregions. The estimated models suggest that migrant stock is a top determinant of remittances, and that an increase in bilateral remittances is explained by a higher occurrence of disasters caused by natural hazards in receiving countries, appreciation of a receiving country's currency value against that of the sending country, lower interest rate differential (receiver-sender), greater capital account openness and higher political instability, and lower costs of remittances. This suggests that an altruistic motivation to remit prevails in the region. We also find that the countercyclicality of remittances rises when recipient countries experience more frequent disasters, a higher old-age dependence ratio, less stringent capital control, and stable political climate.

Using household data from the Vietnam Household Living Standard Survey (VHLSS) and the sector-specific growth and remittance inflow projections by Asian Development Bank (ADB), this study first estimated the COVID-19 pandemic on income and poverty status of the Vietnamese households, and then simulated the impact of cash transfer programs by the government of Vietnam on the income and poverty status of households. Our simulations suggest that COVID-19 leads to substantial reduction in household's per-capita income, and results in additional 1.7 million poor people. The cash transfers would be pro-poor and helps bring about 1.2 million people out of poverty. The transfers would be particularly pro-poor for ethnic minority and rural persons and those working in severely affected economic sectors. Based on the findings, we discussed various policies to implement appropriate measures to help households cope with adverse economic impact of COVID-19.

Remittances from overseas can encourage human capital investment and improve educational outcomes in developing countries. Empirical studies, however, have shown mixed evidence at best. This paper uses a 5-year panel dataset that tracks the same 3,000 households and 8,000 individuals through time in all seven regions of the Kyrgyz Republic to examine the impact of remittances on the human capital formation of school-age children. After correcting for selection bias and other potential endogeneities with instrumental variables and fixed effects regressions, remittances are found to have negative impacts on human capital investment and educational achievement. The negative effects can be attributed in part to recipients' increased expenditure on durable goods and extended hours of child labor on farm work as a compensation for missing adult labor. Our finding calls for actions that mitigate the negative effects and incentivize families to spend remittances on education, including financial literacy education, better monitoring of farm labor hours of school-age children, and targeted investment to improve the quality of education services in the Kyrgyz Republic.

This paper revisits the impact of population aging on economic growth. In order to understand the impact of population aging on economic growth, it is important to consider the changes in the entire age distribution of demography. Our empirical analysis indicates that a change in age distribution that increases the proportion of older people while reducing the working-age population lowers economic growth. We also investigate the effect of technological advances on the relation between population aging and economic growth, using four plausible proxies of technological advancement: life expectancy, labor productivity, automation, and total factor productivity. We find that increasing life expectancy and labor productivity benefit old age groups as they likely help older age groups contribute more positively to future growth. More automation also helps improve productivity of old age groups but in a different way. When robot density increases, old age groups become less disadvantaged compared to the young. Lastly, technological adoption enhances the growth contribution of productive age groups from the 30s to 60s when one compares low with high total factor productivity scenarios.

International migration is an essential element of economic integration. Yet, the intraregional movement of people and labor in Asia and the Pacific has stagnated in recent years even as the flow of goods, services, and investment have steadily risen. This paper examines key factors driving the movement of people from and within the region using bilateral international migrant stock data. Our analysis shows that commonly known determinants such as income differences; population size; and political, geographical, and cultural proximities between the migrant source and destination countries are associated with greater movement, along with the growing share of older population in destination economies and the similarities in the level of educational attainment. The paper also finds that crossborder migration is affected, in varied directions, by the degree of economic integration between the source and destination economies, especially through bilateral trade and value chain links. The offshoring of production - and hence jobs and other economic opportunities - to migrant source countries suppresses outmigration, but the expected rise in the source country income will eventually promote migration by relaxing financial constraints.

Using unique data on rural households in Bangladesh for the period 2000–2014, this study aims to explore whether the socio-economic characteristics of the beneficiary households of international migration have changed over time. Our analysis shows that household education and asset levels are important determinants of international migration, particularly in earlier years. We also find that less educated and less wealthy households did take part in migration, albeit slowly, in recent time. In addition, social network facilitating migration within community is a key contributor to migration, but its predictive power declines over time. These findings suggest that entry barriers to international migration, resulting from paucity of financial, human and social capital endowment, have decreased over time. We also explore possible causes for such changes, including persistent demand for low-skilled workers in major destination countries, increasing domestic demand for educated workers, and increasing access to loans and grants to finance migration., This work was supported by the JSPS KAKENHI Grant Number JP15J11506., http://www.grips.ac.jp/list/jp/facultyinfo/otsuka_keijiro/