Day 4 of 2023 YSEALI Academy Public Policy Seminar

The U.S. dollar has strengthened against most major currencies and most currencies of developing countries this year, including Vietnam. On theory, a strong currency implies lower cost for import from the U.S., but remains a challenge for many countries in reality.

In this session, Prof. Dapice explained this phenomenon that is linked to the strong currency with a little history to give context to the dicussion. He also briefly addressed the possibility of a single world currency and more importantly, the existing barriers to the introduction of a common currency in ASEAN.

Economic integration is substantially affected by both internal and external contexts. The national factors (such as political economy, domestic reforms, and policymaking) are often under-studied in literature.

As our seminar places priority on public policy perspectives, in this lecture, Dr. Le Thai Ha examined the impacts of national factors on economic integration by going over the cost, benefits of economic integration and the instruments of commercial policy.