The views expressed in this paper are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views and policies of the Asian Development Bank (ADB) or its Board of Governors or the governments they represent. ADB does not guarantee the accuracy of the data included in this publication and accepts no responsibility for any consequence of their use. By making any designation of or reference to a particular territory or geographic area, or by using the term "country" in this document, ADB does not intend to make any judgments as to the legal or other status of any territory or area.

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A growing body of literature measures and compares the regional economic integration outcomes across regions and subregions of the world. 1) A common problem in comparing the results presented in different studies is the wide variation of the underlying classifications (i.e., groupings) of countries into regions and subregions across studies. 2) This is particularly problematic because the quantitative measures of regional integration used in these studies tend

Standard-Nutzungsbedingungen:Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden.Sie dürfen die Dokumente nicht für öffentliche oder kommerzielle Zwecke vervielfältigen, öffentlich ausstellen, öffentlich zugänglich machen, vertreiben oder anderweitig nutzen.Sofern die Verfasser die Dokumente unter Open-Content-Lizenzen (insbesondere CC-Lizenzen) zur Verfügung gestellt haben sollten, gelten abweichend von diesen Nutzungsbedingungen die in der dort genannten Lizenz gewährten Nutzungsrechte. A preliminary analysis was conducted as part of an ADB thematic evaluation study on regional cooperation and integration efforts in Asia. The author is grateful to Marco Gatti and his team at the Independent Evaluation Department for their support and early discussions on this study, and to the participants at the Economic Research and Regional Cooperation Department Seminar Series for helpful comments. The views expressed in this paper are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views and policies of the Asian Development Bank (ADB) or its Board of Governors or the governments they represent. Terms of use: Documents in ASIAN DEVELOPMENT BANKADB does not guarantee the accuracy of the data included in this publication and accepts no responsibility for any consequence of their use.By making any designation of or reference to a particular territory or geographic area, or by using the term "country" in this document, ADB does not intend to make any judgments as to the legal or other status of any territory or area. Note: In this publication, "$" refers to US dollars.The ADB Economics Working Paper Series is a forum for stimulating discussion and eliciting feedback on ongoing and recently completed research and policy studies undertaken by the Asian Development Bank (ADB) staff, consultants, or resource persons. The series deals with key economic and development problems, particularly those facing the Asia and Pacific region; as well as conceptual, analytical, or methodological issues relating to project/program economic analysis, and statistical data and measurement. The series aims to enhance the knowledge on Asia's development and policy challenges; strengthen analytical rigor and quality of ADB's country partnership strategies, and its subregional and country operations; and improve the quality and availability of statistical data and development indicators for monitoring development effectiveness.

A new explanation for imperfect technology adoption is proposed. In the model, agents allocate scarce attention rationally between actions and decide whether and how to adopt a technology. Introducing constraints to information processing gives rise to attentional barriers to technology adoption, which affect optimal adoption behavior. The model can explain why individuals (i) fail to adopt profitable technologies, (ii) fail to make the best use of adopted technology, (iii) treat complementary technologies as substitutes, and (iv) change their adoption decision back and forth over time. The model complements existing learning models and is consistent with empirical evidence.