Research Abstract: The closure of the Strait of Hormuz following the outbreak of the 2026 Gulf conflict has produced the most severe global energy supply disruption since the 1973 Arab oil embargo. Approximately 20% of global oil supply and a comparable share of...
Research Abstract: South Asia has the lowest female labor force participation rate (FLFPR) of any region in the world. Across the subcontinent, only approximately 25–30% of working-age women participate in the labor force, compared with approximately 50% globally...
Research Abstract: Micro, small, and medium enterprises (MSMEs) are the backbone of economic activity across South and Southeast Asia. In India, MSMEs account for approximately 30% of GDP, 45% of manufacturing output, and more than 110 million jobs. In Indonesia,...
Research Abstract: National productivity statistics — GDP per worker, total factor productivity, aggregate growth rates — mask enormous variation within large developing economies. In India, per capita income in the richest major state (Goa) is approximately eight...
Research Abstract: Artificial intelligence (AI) is emerging as a potentially transformative force — not through the large-scale enterprise deployments that dominate headlines in advanced economies, but through a distinct set of pathways that are beginning to reach...
Research Abstract: South Asia faces a defining development challenge: how to sustain the rapid economic growth that has lifted hundreds of millions out of poverty while addressing the environmental degradation that threatens to undermine those very gains. The...
Across the middle-income economies that constitute the demographic and economic center of gravity of the region — India, Indonesia, the Philippines, Vietnam, Thailand — the composition of informality is shifting decisively toward services, and within services, toward a rapidly growing category that defies traditional analytical frameworks: platform-mediated gig work.