Paper Title
The Greater Tumen Initiative And Regional Cooperation In Northeast Asia

Abstract
Since the early 1990s, the Greater Tumen Initiative (GTI) has emerged as one of the major platforms for cross-border regional integration in Northeast Asia. Founded officially in 1995 with the support of UNDP, it was given a major boost in 2005 as China, South Korea, Russia, and Mongolia took ownership of the initiative. This paper assesses the effectiveness of GTI in terms of convergence in relative per-capita GDP across the 12 member regions over the period 1995-2013. The results indicate that in the first decade of the sample period intradistributional convergence was strong, while after 2005 improvements in living standards relative to a common benchmark dominated the process. Overall, the findings suggest that GTI has promoted regional convergence, especially over the past decade. Index Terms- regional integration; convergence; Northeast Asia; Greater Tumen Initiative.