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This paper analyzes how East Asian states have regulated membership and migration through meso-level institutions. Specifically, we examine how states have used the household registration system (China's hukou system, South Korea's hoju/hojeok system, and Japan's koseki system) in the process of nation-state building in the early post-World War Two period, as a security measure to control movement throughout the Cold War, and as a tool to build or sever trans-border kinship ties in the contemporary era. Drawing on the literature on multi-level citizenship, the article contributes to the growing scholarship that unpacks the civic-ethnic divide in comparative citizenship studies by examining how meso-level institutions shape national-level membership in countries that are commonly characterized as having 'ethnic' citizenship regimes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The pursuit of Preferential Trade Agreements (PTAs) by numerous countries, aimed at promoting trade among member nations, is widely acknowledged. Nonetheless, policymakers often voice concerns regarding the potentially short-lived nature of PTAs' trade-promoting effects. In light of this concern, we present empirical evidence that substantiates the transient nature of the trade-enhancing impacts associated with PTAs. We identify the expanding economic influence of China in the global trade sphere as a primary driver for this trend. These findings are reinforced by a compelling illustration within the context of the PTAs involving Korea and Japan with Latin American countries. Our case study suggests that the attenuation of the export-promoting effects of Korea and Japan's PTAs with their Latin American counterparts can be attributed to the penetration of Chinese goods, the sustained reduction of Most Favored Nation (MFN) tariffs, and the proliferation of comprehensive PTAs within regional contexts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research on the internationalization of multinational corporations (MNCs) is mostly built on studies of North American and European firms. East Asian MNCs have been studied less, and commonly with reference to theories developed in Western countries. In this paper, we query the validity of these ‘Western’ internationalization models for East Asian firms through comparative case studies of representative Japanese and South Korean MNCs’ expansion into China. We find that the internationalization processes of leading East Asian MNCs match the predictions made by Western theories only partially. Furthermore, we find considerable differences between the internationalization of Japanese and South Korean firms, indicating both that East Asian MNCs follow diverse patterns of internationalization and that established Western models of internationalization evince limitations or weaknesses when applied to East Asian firms. Overall, the findings of this exploratory study illustrate the need for further, in-depth studies on the internationalization of East Asian MNCs which may result in the extensions of existing theories or even new theoretical frameworks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Inclusiveness in economic development has lately emerged as a critical factor for development. This paper adopts an analytical concept of inclusive growth to evaluate East Asia’s economic success. It contests the Western conceptualization of the critical role of public participation in development, and argues that it has played a limited role in terms of inclusive growth in East Asia. Several factors have influenced the outcome of research in this area including the choice of methodology adopted, the challenge of defining and measuring inclusive growth, and the unclear mode and impact of public participation in the process. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This study investigates the effects of government spending shocks on various key macro variables in China, Korea, and Japan using structural VAR models. The main empirical findings are as follows. Government spending multipliers of all three countries are far larger than 1 in recent years. The effectiveness of fiscal expansion has not changed markedly in China but substantially increased in Korea (after the Asian financial crisis) and Japan (during zero lower bound period). Increases in the effectiveness of fiscal expansion are associated with changes in the monetary and exchange rate policy regimes and institutions of these countries. Among the three countries, the government spending multiplier is relatively large in China but relatively small in Japan in recent years. Although the effects on exchange rate and trade balance vary across countries and sample periods, real exchange rate tends to depreciate, whereas trade balance tends to improve under flexible exchange rate regimes. Some empirical findings are consistent with standard theory, but others are not. Abbreviations:NK: New Keynesian VAR: Vector Autoregressive ZLB: Zero Lower Bound [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]