VEAM 2025 is pleased to welcome submissions from Early Career Researchers (ECRs) for a special issue of the Review of Development Economics (RDE), titled “Development Challenges in Asian Middle-Income Countries”.
Call for Papers: REVIEW OF DEVELOPMENT ECONOMICS – Special Issue on “Development Challenges in Asian Middle-Income Countries”
Editors: Katsushi Imai (Co-Editor-in-Chief, The University of Manchester, UK) & Minh Tam Bui (Guest editor, Srinakharinwirot University, Thailand)
📌 View the Full Call for paper: https://bit.ly/47ST7cS
The editors of Review of Development Economics (RDE) invite Early Career Researchers based in low- and middle-income countries to submit a full paper to the special issue on “Development Challenges in Asian Middle-Income Countries” with the deadline the 31st of May 2026. This call is part of RDE’s aspiration to make the journal more “inclusive” to early-career authors from the Global South.
This call targets three different categories of authors.
(1) Participants in the British Academy International Writing Workshop entitled ‘Helping Early Career Researchers (ECRs) in Vietnam and Thailand to develop their capability to publish in high-impact journals in Development Economics’.
(2) ECRs who present a paper at the 16th Vietnam Economist Annual Meeting (VEAM) in December 2025.
(3) ECRs working on Asia and based in any low- or middle-income country.
We welcome papers that address, but are not limited to, the following topics:
• Structural transformation, R&D, firm productivity, innovation-led growth and the middle-income trap
• Globalisation, trade liberalisation, FDI, and GVCs and macroeconomic shocks/policies and their impact on growth, poverty, inequality, and human capital
• Financial market effects on macroeconomic instability, household debts
• Labour market fragmentation, youth unemployment, labour shortage and skill mismatch
• Role of the informal economy and informal employment in economic transformation
• Infrastructure development, spatial inequality and place-based policy
• Short-term and long-term effects of AI and digital technologies on development and growth in MICs
• Climate change, extreme weather and its impact on firms and households
• Demographic shifts: vulnerability of ageing populations, intergenerational consequences of economic transformation and policy responses
• Migration: consequences of internal and international migration in the context of demographic shifts and climate change
• Inequality and poverty dynamics: income and non-income multi-dimensional poverty, including emerging forms of old-age poverty and youth vulnerability
• Gender inequality: LGBTQ+ and gender diversity, women’s labour force participation and unpaid care work, women’s entrepreneurship and SMEs, labour market inclusion, gendered health and education disparities
Submission Deadline of the full manuscript: the 31st of May 2026
Expected date of the publication of the special issue online and on paper: the 28th of March 2027
Note: Manuscripts submitted earlier than the submission deadline will be reviewed as soon as they are submitted. RDE publishes accepted papers online one by one before the expected date of the special issue’s publication.
The authors are advised to refer to the submission guidance (https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/page/journal/14679361/homepage/forauthors.html). They should note that this special issue will be held to the same rigorous standards as regular issues. Reviewers are encouraged to consider the aims of this special issue to ensure constructive feedback to support scholarly growth, particularly when a rejection recommendation is made.
If you have questions, contact: Dr Katsushi Imai at Katsushi.Imai@manchester.ac.uk; Dr Minh Tam Bui buithiminh@g.swu.ac.th.