ABSTRACT In April 2025, the US introduced sharply higher tariff rates under a new “reciprocal tariff” system, raising serious concerns about potential employment impacts on export‐oriented industries in developing countries. This paper examines Cambodian public perceptions of the tariff hikes using a phone‐based survey of 600 households conducted between September and October 2025. We find that 58.5% of respondents disagreed with the statement that the tariff increases negatively affect their jobs, indicating limited perceived employment risk, while 25.9% agreed. Regression analysis reveals substantial heterogeneity across income groups: low‐income respondents employed in export industries are significantly more likely to perceive negative job impacts, whereas middle‐ and higher‐income respondents show no meaningful direct‐exposure effects. Indirect exposure reduces perceived job risks among higher‐income groups, reflecting their greater job stability and financial resilience.

ABSTRACT This study examines the effect of government public data open platforms on firms' knowledge breadth. Using data of Chinese listed firms from 2007 to 2022, the analysis finds that government data openness significantly improves firms' knowledge breadth of innovation. The results indicate that these positive effects are driven by alleviating firms' information asymmetry, increasing talent accessibility, and improving management efficiency. Another finding is that firms located in a city with high administrative levels, SOEs, and firms with low digitalization levels have more apparent innovation improvement effects. Furthermore, the effect of government data openness on knowledge breadth is enhanced not only by the overall quality of government data openness but also by the quality of open data, open platforms, and policy safeguards.

ABSTRACT This study empirically investigates the effects of the additional tariffs imposed by the US in 2025 on the Taiwanese economy. The analysis is based on monthly sales data for Taiwanese firms from January 2023 to July 2025. Tariff effects are identified by comparing 2025 monthly sales of firms whose primary sales destination was the US in 2023 with those whose primary destinations were elsewhere. Consistent with the trend of national‐level exports to the US, we find that additional US tariffs have not yet affected Taiwanese exporters. Additional results indicate that (1) Taiwanese firms with affiliates in the US did not experience positive sales effects; and (2) firms with larger production shares in China have not experienced significant changes in sales. Overall, the economic impacts of Trump 2.0 on Taiwan remain limited as of July 2025. JEL Classification: F15, F53

The author declares no conflicts of interest.

The author declares no conflicts of interest.

This study attempts to measure the endogeneity‐prone effects of the implementation of the domestic systemically important bank (D‐SIB) capital buffer in Thailand by creating a synthetic control for each D‐SIB. The main findings suggest that the D‐SIBs responded to the D‐SIB capital buffer differently, depending on the relative size of the portfolios with higher risk weights. Specifically, the D‐SIB with the highest proportion of business loans in its portfolio decreased lending growth more than the other two D‐SIBs, whereas the D‐SIB with the highest proportion of retail loans did not significantly decrease lending growth. In addition, the state‐owned commercial bank behaved differently from other banks such that synthetic controls cannot be created to replicate the unique behavior. While this study finds no significant effects on capital and risk‐weighted assets in the short run, it cannot rule out the possibility of the D‐SIBs raising more capital in the longer run.

Otsuka, a leading figure in development and agricultural economics.Otsuka has been honored with the Japanese decoration Order of the Sacred Treasure, Gold and Silver Star and has delivered lectures before dignitaries, including the Emperor of Japan, the former prime minister of Ethiopia, and the former president of Tanzania.This book represents the culmination of over 40 years of field research conducted by the author in developing countries.According to Otsuka, the key to reducing poverty and hunger, as well as increasing employment in developing countries, lies in the development of agriculture and industry.This book offers a clear and comprehensive strategy for this.It is also argued that the government needs to intervene appropriately by identifying where and to what extent market failures exist.The book is structured into four parts.Following the introduction in Chapter 1, Part I (Chapters 2 and 3) discusses the characteristics of agriculture and industry, providing a theoretical background in subsequent chapters.Part II (Chapters 4-6) delves into agricultural development, reviewing the history of agricultural development in Asia, exploring what is necessary to achieve a Green Revolution in Africa, and discussing the potential of high-value agriculture.Part III (Chapters 7-9) examines industrial development and the potential of foreign direct investment (FDI) research in Asia and Africa.Part IV (Chapters 10 and 11) presents the conclusion.The following is a summary of each chapter.As an introduction, Chapter 1 highlights the significance of field-based research.The author asserts that a comprehensive understanding of agricultural and industrial development requires three key elements: economic theory, understanding of field realities, and knowledge of econometric analysis.This triad, in fact, underpins all of the author's research.The chapter then guides how to conduct survey-based studies.Chapter 2 identifies the primary characteristic of agriculture as its extensive geographical scope, which makes monitoring hired labor costly.Consequently, small-scale farming is considered efficient and should be promoted at the early stages of development, such as in Africa.However, as economies grow and wages rise, as seen in many Asian countries, mechanization should be encouraged, potentially leading to increased productivity in larger farms.At this stage, enhancing land rental markets and promoting mechanization are necessary to improve agricultural productivity.Chapter 3 examines how economies of agglomeration-through labor markets, information sharing, and inter-firm

Interpreting the trajectory of modern China has long been a fundamental goal of scholars of China.In recent decades, books like Fairbank (1987), Fitzgerald (1996), Lary (2007), and Zarrow (2005) have sought to present grand narratives of China's experiences in the modern era.Others, like Wong (1997) or Chong (2012) take an explicitly comparative and international approach to analyzing China's modern state-building efforts.Few studies, however, have situated China's political development since the 19th century in the broad patterns of global history.Shellen Xiao Wu's book Birth of the Geopolitical Age: Global Frontiers and the Making of Modern China succeeds in doing so by offering an original interpretation of scientific, agricultural, and state-building efforts by China, Japan, the United States, and Germany over the past 200-plus years.Specifically, the book illustrates how these developments were not siloed within national trajectories but instead had meaningful transnational connections.Through the presentation of innumerable examples, Wu challenges the reader to rethink theories of intellectual, economic, and political change that too often rest on the assumption of autonomous nation-states.She also succeeds in her goal of highlighting the individual contributions to the global historical forces that tend to receive the most attention in narratives of this kind.This success is manifest in how the book chronicles the lives and actions of many scholars, agronomists, officials, and geographers (among other professions) whose work, both intellectual and practical, transcended national borders.The sheer number of individuals discussed is evidence itself of the transnational nature of the knowledge networks Wu analyzes.However, the book does not simply recount these individual lives.The author also argues that these biographies shed light on how international professional networks shaped conceptions of frontier, agriculture, nation, geopolitics, and modernity in the countries covered by the book.Playing a central role in this narrative is the concept of geo-modernity, which Wu defines as "clearly demarcated borders and the use of the latest science and technology to develop borderlands through agriculture and the intensive exploitation of natural resources" (p.2).Geo-modernity encompasses a host of cultural and scientific ideas and practices and, the author argues, serves as the basis for geopolitics, or the strategic plans and actions of national governments.In other words, the nation-state system that matured in the 20th century owes its existence, at least in part, to the transnational networks comprised of individual experts, theorists, and officials who organically developed new ways of conceiving humanity's relationship to space and land.These new approaches included efforts at altering the agricultural viability of soil,