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The demographic structure of Asia is expected to change rapidly from around 2020 up to around 2050. Following Japan, which is already at an advanced stage of aging and birthrate decline, China, South Korea, Thailand, and Singapore will also witness a further decline in their birthrates and an aging of their populations. Next in line will be the remaining countries of the Association of South-East Asian Nations as well as India. Such changes, accompanied by a decline in the labor force, will not only adversely affect economic growth, but also have a major impact on voting structures, savings rates, and social security systems. Moreover, the process of demographic aging in Asia will be faster than in Japan, and its extent will be substantial, both of which exacerbates the negative effects. On positive side, these trends will give rise to the emergence of new markets. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Trade openness, high savings rates, human capital accumulation, and macroeconomic policy only accounted for part of the 1965–1990 growth performance in East Asia. Subsequently, demographic change was shown to be a missing factor in explaining the East Asian growth premium. Since 1990, East Asia has undertaken major economic reforms in response to financial crises and other factors. We reexamine the role of the demographic transition in contributing to cross-country differences in economic growth through to 2005, with a particular focus on East Asia. We highlight the need for policy to offset potential negative effects of aging populations in the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While the Asia and Pacific region is characterised by vast diversity, the region as a whole warrants attention. There have been great achievements in recent years in promoting economic growth, building social security and reducing poverty, but giant challenges remain, nine of which are identified. Five resemble problems prevalent in Europe 60 years ago: want; squalor; underemployment; poor education; and bad health. The four others, inequitable growth, discrimination, corruption, and ageing populations lessen the effectiveness of policies targeted on the other five. A fourfold responsive strategy is sketched that includes mechanisms to extend formal sector employment, expand coverage of social security within the formal sector and to the informal sector, and to establish and sustain social safety nets for those otherwise excluded from social protection. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A growing body of evidence suggests that China's emergence is having differential effects on Asia's advanced and developing countries. The region's advanced countries are benefiting from the existence of a large and rapidly growing Chinese market for their capital goods, components and technology, whereas its developing countries compete head to head with China in third markets. These facts create additional challenges for late-industrializing Asian countries seeking to catch up with the region's industrial leaders. In turn, the emergence of an Asian core and periphery will not encourage the development of a cohesive Asian economic and political bloc. Asian regionalism will be open regionalism in order to prevent regional initiatives from giving rise to costly trade diversion. Efforts to promote Asian financial development and integration are unlikely to come at the expense of the region's financial links with the rest of the world. An early move toward a common exchange rate regime with the associated common monetary stance will be problematic. And, in the absence of these common policies, pressure for the development of powerful regional institutions to formulate the common monetary stance will be at best modest. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper addresses the impact of investment in information technology (IT) on the recent resurgence of world economic growth. We describe the growth of the world economy, seven regions and 14 major economies during the period 1989–2003. We allocate the growth of world output between input growth and productivity and find, surprisingly, that input growth greatly predominates! The contributions of IT investment have increased in all regions, but especially in industrialized economies and Developing Asia. Differences in per capita output are explained by differences in per capita input, rather than by variations in productivity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We estimated the current value of ecosystem services for terrestrial ecosystems in 47 countries in the Asia and the Pacific region. Currently, these provide $US14 trillion/yr. in benefits, most of which are non-marketed and do not show up in GDP. We also estimated the changes in terrestrial ecosystem services value for scenarios to the year 2050, built around the four Great Transition Initiative archetypes: (1) Market Forces (MF); (2) Fortress World (FW); (3) Policy Reform (PR); and (4) Great Transition (GT). Results show that under the MF and FW scenarios the ecosystem services value in the region continues to decline from $14 trillion/yr in 2011 to $11 and $9 trillion/yr in 2050, respectively. In the PR scenario, the value is maintained around $14 Trillion/yr in 2050 and in the GT scenario it is significantly restored to $17 Trillion/yr. We also show more detailed maps and results for 8 selected countries in the region (Bhutan, China, India, Philippines, Thailand, Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam) and compare our results with a previous national study of Bhutan. Our results indicate that adopting a set of policies like those assumed in the GT scenario would greatly enhance human wellbeing and sustainability in the region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As Asian economies have become more connected through physical and institutional infrastructure, the region's trade has grown and changed. Intraregional trade has increased its share, in large part through the expansion of trade in intermediates in connection with development of global value chains. At the same time, as part of the same process and as part of the structural transformation that underlies most economic development, the share of services in Asia's trade has risen. Policies that support the development of regional infrastructure and the flow of goods and services, as well as factors of production, can increase the benefits from connectivity. Meanwhile, regional cooperation has a key role to play in mitigating negative impacts that may arise from the vulnerabilities that accompany greater connectivity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The year 1997 witnessed a major malaise develop in the regional economy. The last half of 1997 saw one of the worst financial crises in the history of postwar Asian economies. In particular, some outstanding players in the economic growth race in East Asia were badly infected by an economic growth virus. The immediate impact of Asia's financial crisis is more accurately confined to Indonesia, Korea, Malaysia, the Philippines and Thailand-five East Asian countries hardest hit. The immediate impact of the financial crisis was to put severe downward pressure on currencies of many countries in Southeast Asia. A development that contributed to the surge in capital inflows to the East Asian countries in the early to mid-1990s was the decline in asset yields in industrial countries.

This study investigates the effect of workers' remittances and its volatility on economic growth of five South Asian countries by employing long time series data from 1975 to 2009. Cointegration results confirm a significant positive long run relationship between remittances and economic growth in India, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Nepal, but a significant negative relationship in Pakistan. Conversely, the volatility of workers' remittances has a negative and significant effect on economic growth in Pakistan, Indian, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka, but a negative but insignificant impact in Nepal. All sensitivity analyses confirm that the results are robust. A less volatile inflow of workers' remittances is growth-enhancing for all countries. It is suggested that policy makers should make policies to reduce the transaction cost to welcome remittances into the region. Furthermore, countries like Pakistan should make the policies to discourage voluntary unemployment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper discusses various ways to be followed for conducting a social research in a particular country. It is natural to turn to the methods of empirical social research which lends itself to the investigation of the motives, opinions, behavior patterns and reactions of populations and attempt to apply them to the peoples of Asia and Africa, the young countries which are now being industrialized. In this way it is hoped to gain some insight into the way of thinking of those people, and to discover what they expect from cooperation with the older industrial countries and in what fields they would prefer to receive help from the Eastern or Western lands. A further aim is to discover their opinion of the cultural and economic measures introduced in connexion with development aid. If empirical social research is to produce objective results, it must have a competent institute on hand to do the work. It may be taken as a general principle that whatever country is to be investigated, no social survey of this kind can be conducted from abroad. In market research, for instance, interviewers are instructed to discover where the dividing line comes between state and private enterprise, particularly in the economic sphere. Light must be shed on the money market, the distribution of income among the population, the level of technology, the structure of the labor market and the level of education and vocational training.

The objective of this paper is to examine empirically the sources of variation in export growth of individual developing countries of Asia, the region whose export expansion has been especially sluggish along with Latin America (see Appendix Table 1 for export shares of different LDC regions). The analysis is divided into two parts: exports of Asian countries to DCs and intra-regional exports of these countries. The method, source of data, and definition are given first below. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Rapid population ageing and economic transformation in Asia underline the policy challenges associated with ensuring income security in old age. This article examines the potential role of social pensions in securing old-age income security in Asia. It assesses the main policy trade-offs associated with adopting alternative social pension designs, especially around two critical policy points: the comparative advantages of social assistance and social pensions; and the integration of non-contributory transfers within advanced contributory pension schemes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article applies a game-theoretical analysis of institutions to the international institutional architecture, of which the G20 is treated as a central element. The article argues that international institutions such as the World Trade Organization or the International Monetary Fund are best understood as mechanisms for coordinating and supporting equilibria in repeated games played among policy-makers in the world's largest economies. The growth of the emerging economies, particularly in Asia, has altered these games, and there is no guarantee, with these new entrants and new issues that have emerged, that the old equilibrium strategies are still viable. The G20, it is argued, is best understood as an attempt to respond to this change and coordinate play on a new set of globally welfare-enhancing equilibria in these games. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Building on the recent literature on finance, growth and hunger, we have examined the experience of Asian countries over the period 1960-2010 by dynamic and static panel data models. We have found evidence favouring a positive role of finance-defined as private credit by banks-on growth of GDP and agricultural value added. Private credit as well as loans from the World Bank significantly reduces undernourishment, whereas remittances and loans from microfinance institutions appear to have a negative impact on poverty. Our empirical evidence shows that growth performance was significantly lower during the recent global financial crisis than non-crisis periods, although the severity is much smaller during the recent financial crisis than Asian financial crisis. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study is informed by the theorizing prompted by recent work on state rescaling. I aim to examine the interaction between the top-down and bottom-up rescaling processes that took place in the South Korean developmental state during the late 1960s and early 1970s. I focus on a regionalism that both built a regional scale and influenced the hegemonic crisis of the ruling regime. Specifically, the study illustrates the features of state space that were shaped during the developmental era and the factors that allow state space to be stable and coherent. By dealing with these questions, I provide a possible interpretation of why and how regionalism was a crucial factor in the hegemonic crisis of the 1960s and generated a rescaling of state space. What makes this study significant is not merely the fact that this space is located in East Asia. It could also, more generally, open up an alternative perspective on state rescaling during the early stages of state-led industrialization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The spillover effects of carbon footprint (CFP) labelling are particularly significant in the East Asia Summit (EAS) region which has closely integrated production networks, wide development gaps and predominantly small and medium-sized enterprises. Poor management of the effects would undermine not only the effectiveness of CFP labelling, but also EAS efforts towards economic integration and the narrowing of development gaps. Well-designed labelling schemes, accessible and affordable data and transparent certification processes are essential, as well as capacity-building and engagement of non-labelling countries, in particular LDCs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

SUMMARY While many developing countries experience a short period of economic boom and then spiral quickly into periods of deficit, currency fluctuation, and indebtedness, China has been able to sustain rapid economic growth and maintain solid fiscal capacity for the past 30 years, even during the Asian financial crisis in the late 1990s and the global recession in the beginning of the 21st century. This article examines three key strategies behind China's fiscal success - its flexibility in adapting tax policies to the changing economic and social conditions, its success in realigning the intergovernmental fiscal relationship in 1994 and forcing subnational governments to become more entrepreneurial in revenue generation, and its pursuit of institutional reforms since the mid-1990s to improve the government's capacity in budgeting and financial management. The article evaluates the implications of the Chinese experience for other developing countries and discusses the future challenges of fiscal reforms in China. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

SUMMARY Climate change and escalating degradation of ecosystem services place the need for greening economic growth on the international policy agenda. To make growth greener and more inclusive, it is crucial to change the institutions and incentive structures in national sector reforms and to involve poor and vulnerable groups in decision making. The article analyses the role that strategic environmental assessment (SEA) of sector reforms can play in greening growth in developing countries and discusses implications for public administrations. We suggest that SEA can contribute to greening growth if it draws attention to environmental priorities when the sector reform agenda is set, fosters policy learning processes through repeated and sustained stakeholder interaction and facilitates access to information and empowerment of environmental constituencies. The empirical basis for the article is drawn from a recent World Bank pilot programme involving SEAs of different sector reforms (mining, forestry, urban planning, infrastructure) in Africa (Kenya, Malawi, Sierra Leone, Guinea, Liberia) and Asia (China, Bangladesh and Pakistan). Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article offers the author's comments on the paper "Demographic Change and Economic Growth in Asia," by D. E. Bloom and J. E. Finlay, published in this issue of the journal. The author states that the model derived by Bloom and Finlay assumes that the per capita growth is a process of convergence toward the steady-state level of income per worker. The author thinks that it is difficult to envisage the steady-state level of income per worker, as some variables used are time variant.

The Tracking Development project aims to explain the divergences in development outcomes in sub-Saharan Africa and South-East Asia over the past fifty years through the pair-wise comparison of four countries in each region. The development trajectories in South-East Asia revealed that the transition to sustained growth has consistently been associated with policies aimed at (i) macroeconomic stabilisation; (ii) improving life in the rural sector, increasing agricultural productivity and ensuring an ample supply of food; and (iii) liberalising the economy and creating conditions of economic freedom, particularly for peasant farmers and other small actors. In Africa, initiatives in these directions have been taken in some instances, but the simultaneous pursuit of all three policy objectives has not occurred. Most noticeably, policies aimed at macroeconomic stabilisation were pursued in both regions, but whereas in South-East Asia these were associated with policies leading to poverty reduction, this was not the case in Africa. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study analyses southern and eastern Asian country-specific flood disaster-related data mainly categorized into hydrological, socio-economic and flood disaster impact. The highly riverine flood-prone countries namely Malaysia, Indonesia, Philippines, Cambodia, China, Lao PDR, Vietnam, Thailand, Bangladesh and Nepal are considered for comparative study. The results suggest that the economic growth is prevailing in each country in a relative term. The level of disaster preparedness has also been noticeably improved by the respective governments, but the capacity of communities to cope with such extreme events is weakening because of lack of social capacity and increased severity of floods. The problem is further exacerbated due to the weakness in the adopted disaster preparedness system, which is outmoded and not effective to address the prevailing dynamic nature of the problem. This leads to the fact that the annual minimum number of flood related deaths remains always above 2000 for the last several years in the selected countries. The evidences reveal that there are key factors, which directly or indirectly, are responsible for the obstacles, and the variation of these factors in both spatial and temporal scales need to be analysed to understand the present state of flood risk in each country. The influence of each selected factor to the state of flood risk is compared among selected countries to recognize and prioritize the key responsible factors. The finding from this integrated study is helpful in identifying the critical sectors that should be addressed first to mitigate the potential damage from the floods in the country and the region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We investigate the effects of corporate governance and family ownership on firm valuation through investment efficiency in Asian emerging markets. Using 3 years of time series data from the Credit Lyonnais Securities Asia corporate governance score for 10 Asian emerging markets, we find that good corporate governance leads to better or more efficient investment decisions and eventually to higher firm value. We also find that investors reward firms for improvement in corporate governance. The findings do not hold for Asian firms with a family or concentrated ownership structure. The results are not driven by changes in accounting standards in these markets. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aquaculture is equated with the reduction of poverty by intergovernmental agencies such as the FAO, which advocate the promotion of small-scale aquaculture through project-based interventions. There is a lack of convincing empirical evidence to support the efficacy of this type of intervention, however. Meanwhile, commercial cultured freshwater fish production has increased hugely throughout Asia, despite limited direct donor or government support. Its impact with respect to poverty also remains ambiguous, however. This article critically evaluates the developmental impacts of both immanent and interventionist forms of aquaculture and advances finely nuanced interpretations of both. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study provides insight into the importance of national culture, investment in operations, and performance in the context of emerging Asian economies with a collectivist orientation, which are compared to industrialized Western nations with an individualist orientation. Hypotheses are developed and tested based on the cultural concept of individualism/collectivism, the theory of performance frontiers, and the extent of economic development. More specifically, data collected from 639 manufacturing plants in nine countries are used to first assess the influence of the cultural trait of individualism/collectivism on the extent of investment in structural assets (specifically: physical and capital-based) and infrastructural assets (specifically: team-based methods and improvement programs). Second, the influence of the extent of economic development on these investment factors is measured. Third, evidence is provided supportive of the theory of performance frontiers, and the nature of resource investments in the context of the cultural construct of individualism/collectivism. And fourth, support is provided for the efficacy of this theory, as well as for its compatibility and association with the resource-based view of the firm. Overall, this study makes important contributions to both theory and practice, and provides evidence for the role played by the cultural characteristic of individualism/collectivism in determining plant level investment outcomes in emerging Asian economies. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Class relationships are amongst the fundamental drivers of development, and it is argued here that over the next 30 years a major influence on the pattern and path of development will be exerted by the rise of the ‘new middle classes’ of Asia. At the same time, in the context of the blocked transition of the present, it seems unlikely that those who are marginalised and excluded will be able adequately to organise resistance, much less change structures of power, but poverty will be managed through welfare interventions like India's National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on the role of the state in the development and operation of global care chains (GCC). It discusses the role of global nursing care chains (GNCCs) in bridging between the state and the GCC. It also argues the states strategies in developing an export industry in healthcare labour which constitute a major input into the formation of GNCCs. It also explores the key aspects of state's emphasis on nurse labour exports as an economic development strategy and displays the importance of the state in three ways, including the promotion of female migration, through the development of nursing education and the product quality of nursing labour export.

There is a general consensus that human capital is a major factor behind long-run economic growth. Yet, on a macro level, the empirical results do not always seem to concur with this view. To explain this gap between theory and empirics, more focus has been laid on measurement error and data quality. Using an alternative estimate of the stock of human capital, based on Judson (2002), we find evidence that the two major views on the role of human capital in economic development by Lucas (1988) and Romer (1990) coexist and are by no means mutually exclusive. Using a Johansen cointegration test, we find that in India and Indonesia the level of human capital is cointegrated with the level of aggregate income during the whole 20th century, which confirms the theory of Lucas (1988). In Japan, however, the Lucasian approach can be verified only for the first half of the century, while after 1950 there is cointegration between the growth rate of aggregate income and the level of human capital, which is in line with Romer's view. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Within current poverty reduction programmes, focus on the social-welfare millennium development goals is widening to embrace a concern with infrastructural investment, particularly for remote areas. The previously popular assumption that rural disadvantage can be remedied by road-building is resurfacing. Using survey data from Ethiopia, Zambia and Vietnam, this article explores how effective such investment is in addressing mobility and social-service accessibility in rural areas. The findings indicate that, in extremely remote areas, road improvements may catalyse the expansion of social-service provision, as evidenced in Ethiopia. However, given the poor's relative lack of motor vehicles and ability to pay for public transport, they are, by no means, a sufficient condition for enhancing the mobility of the rural poor. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores the politics of urban growth in a transitional society. Korea, which is experiencing rapid industrialization, urbanization and democratic transition exemplifies a set of conditions that may seem to favor the emergence of an urban growth politics and business-led growth coalition much like that found in urban areas at the time of industrialization, and still prevalent in much of the US and other western democracies today. Yet our multilevel case analyses show that the transformations in Korea as a late industrializer, late democratizer and late adopter of urban policy have helped to consolidate more restricted policies toward urban growth than in the US or much of Europe. Multilevel analysis that highlights dynamics at global and national as well as local levels illuminates why the growth politics of a transitional society like Korea resembles as well as differs from that of older industrialized democracies. Résumé Cet article étudie la politique d'expansion urbaine dans une société en transition. La Corée, dont la période de transition actuelle connaît une évolution industrielle, urbaine et démocratique rapide, illustre un ensemble de conditions qui favorise apparemment l'émergence d'une coalition entre politique d'expansion urbaine et croissance par les entreprises—semblable à celle qui existait dans les zones urbaines à l'époque de l'industrialisation et subsiste encore dans la majorité des États-Unis et autres démocraties occidentales. Pourtant, nos analyses de cas à plusieurs niveaux montrent que, dans une Corée en phase tardive d'industrialisation, de démocratisation et d'adoption d'une politique publique urbaine, les transformations ont contribuéà combiner des politiques d'expansion urbaine plus limitées qu'aux États-Unis ou que dans une grande partie de l'Europe. Une analyse à plusieurs niveaux mettant en lumière une dynamique aux plans mondial et national, mais aussi local, explique pourquoi la politique d'expansion d'une société en transition comme la Corée présente à la fois ressemblances et différences par rapport aux anciennes démocraties industrialisées. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Five studies of total factor productivity (TFP) growth in eight East Asian countries are surveyed. The discrepancies among the studies are very large: the average absolute discrepancy across studies of estimated TFP growth in each country exceeds the average absolute difference across countries of the rates estimated by each study. A method for decomposing these large discrepancies among the studies is proposed and applied. The single largest source of discrepancies is the estimated elasticity of GDP with respect to capital. It is argued that the two studies that used regression estimates of this elasticity are probably less reliable than the three that derived it by assuming that factors are paid the value of their marginal product. On this basis, our preferred estimates imply that annual TFP growth in East Asia ranged from 3 per cent in Japan to a small decline in the Philippines. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents information regarding the situation of food security and economic growth in Asia. That rich countries have little to fear from hunger is a simple consequence of Engel's Law, consumers have a substantial buffer of non-food expenditures to rely on, even if food prices rise sharply. In a market economy, the rich do not starve. Wars, riots, hurricanes and floods, for example, can disrupt the smooth functioning of markets, and all in their wake can perish. But rich societies usually have the means to prevent or alleviate such catastrophes, social or natural. Food security in rich societies is simply part of a broader net of social securities.

Presents the struggles of indigenous and tribal peoples in Asia to assert their basic human rights and fundamental freedoms as collectivities and individuals within the countries where they are found and in the international arena. Impact of the modernization and development agenda on indigenous communities; Sedentarization of nomadic and semi-nomadic indigenous people to control their movements; Institutionalization of discrimination in government laws, policies and programs.

Informal mining activities provide livelihoods for millions of poor in mineral-rich developing countries. Yet, they continue to remain one of the least understood areas in mineral resource management. While its poverty reduction potential is acknowledged, the heterogeneous forms of mining that come under its purview are not well discussed. This article aims to draw attention to the politics of definition by briefly introducing the reader to the nomenclature currently used to describe such mining activities. Then the article examines the nature of informality that justifies the name, and then illustrates the claim by documenting a range of informal mining practices in India with cited examples from other Asian countries. It illustrates the variations in social-economic, technical and legal characteristics, by putting such mining in a community and participatory framework. Finally, the article discusses ways to move towards sustainable development with community participation in mineral-rich areas of developing countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Presents an annotated list of books related to the economic developments of Asian countries as of May 2004. "China: New Engine of World Growth" edited by Ross Garnaut and Ligang Song; "Sustaining Competitiveness in the New Global Economy: The Experience of Singapore," edited by Ramkishen Rajan; "Democracy, Governance and Economic Performance: Theory and Evidence," by Feng Yi; "Poverty, Growth and Institutions in Developing Asia," edited by Ernesto M. Pernia and Anil B. Deolalikar.

The current crisis in Asia has seen the case for more open economic policy come under attack in the developing world. In this article Michael Chui, Paul Levine, Mansoob Murshed, and Joseph Pearlman argue that any reversal of the trend towards globalisation would be a great mistake for policymakers. The association of openness with higher growth is one of the most robust empirical results in economics. Here we explore the mechanisms that explain this result. We argue that current high growth rates in Asia are unsustainable and there is a long-term as well as a short-term problem of 'over-investment' in Asia. However, we report research findings that show how international knowledge spillovers and free trade can enable the world economy to grow, the developing countries to progress, and the developed countries to benefit. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article outlines the close relationship between economic development and industrial relations in South and Southeast Asia. After an examination of key industrial relations features, the authors discuss emergent global trends and current Asian realities, and highlight lessons from the Asian experience, and the implications for the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Decentralization in development planning and administration is being attempted in novel ways as governments seek to generate economic growth and at the same time achieve greater social equity. Little has been done to assess comparatively the nature and effectiveness of these experiments. This article is based on a selection of eight case studies, each set in a different Asian country, where an innovative approach to decentralization has been adopted by the central government in order to achieve development aims. The stimulus to innovate is considered, the different forms of decentralization compared and a tentative comparative evaluation is made of the effectiveness of decentralizing development planning and implementation. What the analysis shows is that despite diversity in the objectives and differences in the forms decentralized programmes took there were common problems centring on administrative capability. This, the author argues, has important implications for governments and international agencies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Reports on the growth of the demand for natural gas in Asia. Role of natural gas in satisfying new demand as a result of abundance, growth in gas-fired power generation and the environmental benefits offered by gas; Accounts on the annual growth in gross domestic product in Asian countries; Link of growth in energy consumption to economic growth.

The authors discuss the benefit of health reforms in reducing disparities in health care access among nations in south and east Asia. They mention that the economic development in south and east Asia has generated higher expectations and living standards of better health as well as significant demographic changes.

The article offers the author's comments on the paper "Demographic Change and Economic Growth in Asia," by D. E. Bloom and J. E. Finlay, published in this issue of the journal. The author focuses on the demographic variables used by Bloom and Finlay in developing a convergence model, including the schooling variable and the working-age population variable. The author thinks that there is a wide range of country-specific factors that will affect individual growth rates in Asia.

The article reviews the book "How Asia Works: Success and Failure in the World's Most Dynamic Region," by Joe Studwell.

The article focuses on communist China's economic growth. The purpose of this article is to throw light on communist China's asserted economic growth by comparing it with that of the Republic of China, Hong Kong, and Japan. This is not to minimize in any way the Indian development, which has been rapid during the Nineteen Fifties and which has given very encouraging evidence to Asia of what can be accomplished with free institutions. It is merely an attempt to put Communist China's claimed economic progress back into focus. It should be emphasized that this article does not intend to analyze how effective the Chinese communists have been in improving their military potential even though this appears to be a primary aim of their economic policy. Instead this report intends to outline an approach for analyzing the relative effectiveness of the Chinese communist system in promoting economic growth; it is this latter question that appears to be most hotly debated. It appears that many analysts are convinced that just because a regime can hold down consumption, theoretically it should, therefore, be promoting a large volume of sound investment and a huge growth potential.

Presents information on a regional cooperation in North East Asia sponsored by the Heilongjiang University and Harbin Municipal Government in North East China in January 1992. Emphasis of the conference; Bilateral political relations between North East Asian countries; Economic development in the region.

The article offers the author's comments on the paper "Demographic Change and Asian Dynamics: Social and Political Implications," by T. Inoguchi, published in this issue of the periodical. The author states that the Asian countries can enjoy the demographic bonus if the economic growth, employment creation and human resource development can absorb the increasing numbers of the labor force. The author thinks that with growing inequalities in Thailand and China, social turmoil has emerged.

The Council on Economic and Cultural Affairs maintains three programmes related to rural economic and cultural development in Asia. The largest programme is intended to help Asian scholars and administrators increase their competence to deal with problems of rural development. The council has done this primarily through making available visiting professors of agricultural economics or rural sociology to faculties of agricultural economics in Asian universities. These visiting professors have been either associates of the council or on leave from American universities. Since 1954, visiting professors have been attached for periods varying from one to six years at National Taiwan University, Taipei, Taiwan; Chung Lising Provincial University, Taichung. Taiwan; College of Agriculture, University of the Philippines, Los Banos, Philippines, etc. Visiting professors have helped these institutions undertake research and improve their instruction in agricultural economics, rural sociology, and community development. The council has made a number of grants in support of agricultural economics research and to support meetings concerned with agricultural economics. Of particular note are a group of related grants in Japan to encourage empirical studies of agriculture. These have been made to University of Tokyo, National Research Institute of Agriculture and the National Institute of Agricultural Sciences, Tokyo; Kyushu University, Hokkaido University, Tottori University, and Kyoto University.

This article examines a number of policy challenges and dilemmas arising from the pattern of growth and poverty reduction in Asia, central to which is the fact that growth and poverty reduction have been more rapid in Asia than in any other region in the last decade, and yet Asia still contains the majority of the world's poor. The article examines the record of achievement, possible future trends including emerging patterns of inequality, and likely future priorities for poverty-reduction policies. It assesses the role of official development assistance and suggests how it may evolve in future, in part linked with responses to a number of challenges shared between Asian and OECD countries, including energy supply, environmental issues including climate change, and financial stability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The extent of poverty reduction in Asia by 2015 will depend upon two linked issues: sustaining the current rates of economic growth and avoiding increases in income inequality. Rapid growth over the past 15 years has itself created three challenges for its continuation: inadequate infrastructure; energy shortages and insecurity; and depletion of natural resources and environmental degradation. The ways in which these problems are addressed will have impacts not only on growth but also on inequality, requiring policy interventions at multiple levels, having implications for governance at multiple levels, and involving the development of new partnerships within the region and beyond. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This overview introduces the articles in this theme issue of DPR. Their focus is on how growth can be sustained in the face of a number of challenges, and how it can be made more poverty-reducing. The context against which these issues are examined is dynamic, with rapid change in rural-urban balance, shifts in patterns of regional and global trade and questions about whether existing modes of energy use and environmental management are sustainable. Whether and how new partnerships can be forged - including partnerships between Asian countries and donors - and how they might accelerate poverty reduction in this changing context is a central concern. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Growth alone does not guarantee sustained poverty reduction, and it may also create threats to social cohesion that in turn can undermine growth. While development thinking remains dominated by a ‘growth-first’ paradigm, Asian experience helps to moderate this view, illustrating the important role of government policy in creating pro-poor growth, providing public goods and social protection mechanisms, and creating the institutional conditions for more inclusive and equitable development. This article examines the structural transformations which accompany growth, and their implications for appropriate policies to progress towards the MDGs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article offers a common framework for addressing Asia's varied human-development challenges by observing that, for the most part, they stem from a systematic failure in the delivery of basic services, especially to poor people, caused by a failure of accountability at different points in the service-delivery chain. It describes various efforts by Asian countries to remedy this situation. While there are some encouraging early results, these efforts have also turned up some new challenges to Asia's human-development problems, three of which - politics, decentralisation, and the role of learning from impact evaluation - are highlighted by the study. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]