Do Investment Provisions in Regional Agreements Foster Growth? A Quasi-experimental Analysis of the ASEAN–Japan Partnership

This finding remains robust after event-study tests, country-specific policy timing checks, country-clustered and wild-cluster bootstrap inference, controls for competing regional agreements, adjustments for the global financial crisis, propensity score matching DID estimation, placebo tests, and alternative sample composition checks. Auxiliary channel evidence further suggests that AJCEP is associated with higher foreign direct investment inflows, stronger production-network trade linkages, and improved regulatory quality.

Heterogeneity analysis indicates that the growth effect is not clearly differentiated by income level, but remains positive across both interventionist industrial-policy and more market-oriented environments. These findings suggest that investment-related regional agreements foster growth more effectively when supported by credible domestic implementation, regulatory alignment, transparent investment procedures, institutional capacity building, and production-network upgrading.