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This paper provides the theoretical guide and introduction to a selected list of papers evaluating the drivers of technological catch-up experiences from Asia. It departs from neoclassical preoccupation with markets as the sole or dominant institution of economic allocation by arguing that the evidence supports the evolutionary logic of macro, meso and micro interactions between several institutions, depending on the actors involved, structural location and taxonomic and trajectory elements of technical change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the impact of macroprudential policies on the nexus between economic uncertainty and bank risk in emerging Asian economies. We construct our index of economic uncertainty by applying the Generalized Autoregressive Conditional Heteroskedasticity (GARCH)-in-mean model to a series of important macroeconomic variables, and borrow macroprudential policy indices from Cerutti et al. (2017) and Alam et al. (2019). Using bank-level panel data from approximately 600 commercial banks in 11 emerging Asian economies during the period 2000–2016, we find consistent evidence that bank risk increases with economic uncertainty, while macroprudential measures play an ameliorative role in uncertainty-induced bank risk. Our baseline findings are largely driven by macroprudential measures that aim to dampen the credit cycle more than those that target increasing the resilience of the banking sector. Our further analyses of the heterogeneous impacts of macroprudential measures by specific type on the risk of banks show that liquidity-based instruments, reserve requirements and currency instruments play a more conspicuous role in the economic uncertainty‒bank risk nexus than capital-based and asset-side macroprudential instruments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As we approach the 2015 date by which the Millenium Development Goals (MDGs) are to be achieved, there is increasing scrutiny as to the progress towards their achievement. The MDGs were intended to be global targets and not necessarily to be assessed at the country level. In other words, countries were to contribute to the global targets but not be held to account against them, as they were originally conceived. In practice though, countries are assessed against the global MDG targets. It is appropriate that continuing interest be paid to the achievement of the MDGs, however it is also necessary that the global community now start to turn its attention to what framework for addressing the world's development needs beyond the MDG timeframe following 2015. The ‘poverty landscape’ has changed significantly in the last decade – partly as a result of the international community's focus on the MDGs – and so it is necessary that a new approach to poverty alleviation reflect this changed reality. This paper introduces a range of papers presented at an international conference on the MDGs that critically analyse the current MDGs and pose questions as to how should we follow the MDGs beyond 2015. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper offers an assessment of the mainstreaming of fisheries in national development plans and Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers within the Asia-Pacific region. Fisheries and aquaculture in the region make a significant contribution to world fisheries production. Importantly, those directly involved in the sector are predominantly small-scale artisanal producers, a group traditionally regarded as extremely vulnerable in poverty terms. Therefore, mainstreaming - integrating a sector into every stage of the national policy process - may have important welfare implications for those drawing livelihoods from the industry. This paper examines the significance of fisheries and aquaculture to developing Asia-Pacific economies, and evaluates the extent to which the sector has been mainstreamed in national development and poverty reduction strategies using a content analysis framework. We conclude that the representation of fisheries issues, the recognition of sectoral poverty, policy responses, and stakeholder representation, is typically greater than in other fish producing regions, and there are many examples of best practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines and compares the determinants of producer and consumer price inflation in ten Asian countries during 2000–2015. In this connection, we also investigate the pass-through of global oil prices, global food prices and exchange rates to domestic producer and consumer prices. The model applied here is based on the dynamic interrelationship between the price variables in the distribution chain. Our results show that external cost-push factors such as oil and food prices are more important in explaining producer price inflation than consumer one. For consumer prices, demand-pull factors still explain much of the variation in inflation. The pass-through of oil (food) prices tends to be higher in oil (food) exporting countries than in oil (food) importing countries. Government policy measures played a role in reducing or delaying the pass-through of oil and food prices to domestic prices. Lastly, exchange rate pass-through tends to be higher in countries with more flexible exchange rates. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper will examine the level of services trade integration in Asia in comparison with Europe and North America. The main empirical findings of this paper are that: (i) the regional bias of services trade in Asia is as high as or higher than in Europe and North America; (ii) in Asia, the regional bias of services trade is higher than that of goods trade, which is in sharp contrast to Europe and North America, where the regional bias of goods trade is higher than that of services trade; and (iii) while Asia's regional bias of goods trade shows a declining trend, that of services trade remains high, although in the future its decline is expected. Asia's relatively high-level of regional bias of services trade can be explained by the following factors: (i) a relatively high prevalence of a shared language (Chinese), which is essential to services trade, but not to goods trade; and (ii) the archipelagic nature of the region, which inhibits goods trade more than services trade. In contrast, for example, major European countries share land borders with their neighbors and they speak different languages. In order to deepen Asia's services trade integration, two policies are necessary. First, effective regional services agreements are critical to enhancing the level of integration. Second, policies to increase the trade of crisis-resilient services, such as professional services and insurance, as opposed to crisis-vulnerable services, such as transport and travel, are necessary. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Asia is densely populated and home to most of the world's megacities. However, its urban primacy and urban concentration, especially those of developing Asia, are much lower than their counterparts in the rest of the world. This is an important puzzle that has not been addressed in the literature. Motivated by a theory of Krugman and Livas Elizondo, this paper attributes the lower urban concentration and urban primacy to higher levels of trade openness in Asia. Empirical evidences are provided using panel data from developing countries in Asia, from the rest of the developing world, and from China. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper develops a framework that uses fuzzy-set theory to measure human well-being. Fuzzy sets allow for gradual transition from one state to another while also allowing one to incorporate rules and goals, and hence are more appropriate for measuring outcomes that are ambiguous. Such ambiguity is an inherent characteristic of cross-country achieved well-being assessments. This framework is used to provide a fuzzy representation of the well-known Human Development Index (HDI) and its three components. Fuzzy HDI estimates for 14 Pacific Asian countries are provided and compared with non-fuzzy estimates. Quite large differences in rankings emerge. The paper concludes by suggesting that fuzzy measures should be used more widely to measure achieved well-being outcomes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Foreign direct investment (FDI) has fueled the engine of growth of the Malaysian economy since the early 1970s. Most literature in the area of FDI uses Dunning's eclectic paradigm to explain the who, where, and how of FDI. However, these explanations are inadequate to explain the timing (or when) of FDI, especially during periods of uncertainty. Recent work on FDI introduces two further factors to explain the behavior of foreign investors during times of uncertainty, namely, reversibility and delayability. This paper utilizes these two additional factors to explain the behavior of potential foreign investors. Employing data obtained from the Malaysian Investment Development Authority (MIDA), the paper analyzes the changing nature of sectoral FDI and links this to the reversibility and delayability factors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper addresses the question of how the new information and communication technologies (ICTs) can potentially help reduce poverty in developing countries. Starting with the definition and types of ICTs, the paper discusses a number of instances where various ICTs have been fruitfully applied to improve the welfare of rural people in a number of developing economies. The paper also reviews how ICTs can be an indirect instrument of poverty reduction through their impact on growth. Finally the paper discusses the various factors that influence the adoption of new ICTs and the policies developing countries can adopt to take advantage of the new ICT revolution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper discusses the emerging evidence relating to the origins and aftermath of the 1997 Asian financial crisis and its implications for the regulation of the short-term capital account. First, it suggests that the evidence supports an interpretation of the crisis as arising from the inherent instability of short-term, highly liquid capital markets rather than one which focuses solely on common, fundamental weaknesses in the most affected economies. Second, the paper argues that the balance between the state and international and domestic capital is changing as a result of the crisis and that accelerated liberalization and deregulation further weaken the ability of the nation-state to pursue specific development objectives. Given that the nationstate remains the locus of development efforts, liberalization of capital account transactions poses serious problems for policy-makers, with no clear consensus as to the extent of the costs and benefits of alternative policy options. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A large part of the upsurge in global Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) until the global financial crisis of 2008–2009 has been due to mergers and acquisitions (M&As) as opposed to Greenfield FDI. Also, noteworthy is the growing significance of developing Asia in these cross-border M&As, both as sources of finance as well as destinations of investments. These cross-border M&A flows have deepened the economic integration of developing Asia with the global economy. This paper examines the extent and determinants of M&As to and from developing Asia over the period 2000–2010 with particular emphasis on the financial drivers of intraregional M&As. Global liquidity and risk conditions, as proxied by London Inter Bank Offered Rate (LIBOR), consistently show up as being an important driver of intraregional flows. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper begins with a commentary on the unfolding of the Asian crisis, and includes summary information on the effect of the crisis on the rote of economic growth and unemployment in the region. A review of current thinking on the causes of the crisis follows. This review evaluates whether the Asian crisis was caused primarily by weaknesses in the affected economies, such as inappropriate exchange rote policies and inadequate financial regulation, or by international market failures. The paper concludes with a critical analysis of the International Monetary Fund's role in the crisis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper provides a political-economy analysis of the Asian financial crisis, with a focus on the economies of Indonesia, Korea, Malaysia and Thailand. It explains why the crisis affected each of these countries differently and why the responses to the crisis differ between governments. The paper argues that banking crises need not necessarily lead to currency crises. In particular, it provides an argument that, despite its banking crisis. Korea should have avoided a currency crisis because its economic fundamentals were fundamentally sound. That it failed to do so was due to the inertia of the previous government and IMF policies, which have the support of the current government because they are consistent with its political imperative. This paper also examines the roles played by the United States, Japan and China, which are the key regional players in the region, in the crisis. It argues that the behaviour of the key regional players was very much dictated by their domestic and international agendas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The importance of culture on economic outcomes has been an element of ongoing research mainly in the disciplines outside of mainstream economics such as sociology and anthropology. From an economic perspective, there is a strong feeling among the corporate community that culture can be influential in business dealings. International trade is one area of business where cultural diversity can matter. This paper investigates the effect of trading partner cultural diversity on trade within the gravity model framework. The gravity model incorporates four measures to capture cultural diversity: religion, ethnicity, language and legal origin. Using data on New Zealand's trade with Asia and employing the panel corrected standard errors estimation procedure, the empirical findings reveal that Asian diversity in religion and languages is positively correlated with New Zealand–Asia trade. The results reveal that the expected effects of standard gravity variables, and we conclude that the cultural diversity of trading partners positively influences international trade. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The fast growth of the manufacturing sector in Indonesia during the 1970s and 1980s and its relatively steady growth during the 1990s and early 2000s were argued to be the result of the kind of industrial policy reforms that were implemented. However, another important development since the early 1970s has been the rapidly deteriorating quality of environmental conditions in the country. Thus, the purpose of this paper is to analyse how industrial policy reforms have impacted on the environmental performance of industry, as well as to describe whether the introduction of industrial environmental policies has reduced industries' environmental impact. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the past two decades, US-Asia linkages have improved tremendously with the gradual transformation of some Asian countries as sources of high skilled as well as low cost labor. Extensive research on US-Japan relationships have been undertaken in the 1980s and the 1990s with a progression of research toward the four tigers and now China. South and South East Asian economies are usually neglected in academic research on Asia. This paper provides a comprehensive examination of business links (trade, foreign direct investment, licensing, and patents) and knowledge links (labor flow, publications and citations) within the context of technology transfer and technology cooperation between the two regions. The data show that the United States is increasingly dependent on imports from Asia while Asian nations are dependent on US FDI and technology licenses. For knowledge links, the United States continues to attract Asian scientists and engineers and, over the past ten years, interregional collaborations have strengthened. Economic linkages in the past 30 years are now complemented by knowledge links, which is creating transnational knowledge networks and will eventually facilitate further development of the science and technology workforce and innovation in Asian nations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper considers the conflicts between the West and Asia in the age of globalization and its concomitant ideology of liberal values. It concludes that while the material wealth of the West is welcome everywhere, Asia has resisted, and will continue to resist, the attempts to homogenize Asian culture. The paper argues that the West should accept differences in human rights, ecological policies and forms of governments, and limit itself to the equalization of opportunities for commerce and trade. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the mid-1990s, the idea of a trilateral or tripolar world order based on the economically most advanced macro-regions North America, Western Europe and East Asia — the new Triad — has gained much acceptance in Asian and European policy-making circles. Though the triangle imagery is still quite far from what seems to be reality, it provided the major rationale for the creation of the Asia-Europe Meeting (ASEM) process which was designed to strengthen the 'weak leg' in the triadic interregional relationship. The paper analyses the role of ASEM in the construction of the new Triad and identifies five functions of ASEM in this context. It concludes that the recent Asian economic crisis tends to undermine the rationale on which ASEM was built, at least temporarily, whereas ASEM itself may not lose its importance for the countries involved. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Do governments in the emerging Asia and Pacific region independently set corporate tax rates? This paper answers the question and contributes to the growing empirical tax competition literature by (1) generating a predictable tax reaction function considering the ‘lumpy’ nature of economic geography; (2) using GMM to estimate the tax reaction functions using panel data of 14 countries in the Asia and Pacific region between 1980 and 2007. We find evidence of strategic fiscal policy interaction. Globalization has positive effects on the interactive policy setting. Country size has also positive effect but the effects are offset when the openness deepens. Furthermore, a substitution relation between capital and labor is implied. Overtime, countries in the Asia and Pacific region seem to become more competitive in corporate tax rates. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the international capital mobility in North Asia (South Korea and Taiwan), South Asia (Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore and Thailand) and India. In particular, the Feldstein-Horioka puzzle, which states domestic investment and savings are highly and positively correlated, was examined for cointegration using an autoregressive distributed lag bounds testing procedure. The results did not show a positive correlation between savings and investment. There was essentially no relationship at level between savings and investment in all eight cases. Thirteen out of 16 structural break tests or 81.25% indicate no structural breaks. The analysis concluded with certain limitations that there is high capital mobility in the economies under study. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Tertiarisation of the labour market has been associated globally with economic progress. In developing countries, labour market deformities may push people into the service economy out of distress. This paper examines the tertiarisation process in the Indian labour market to identify the reasons behind such trends and the likely impact of such movements. It is observed that the employment growth in the tertiary sector had been dynamic and growth-induced during the 1980s, but in recent times has become distress-driven. Sub-sectors within the tertiary sector are behaving differently, indicating the heterogeneity of this sector. Policymakers should note these issues and take appropriate steps not only to boost high-end jobs but also to improve productivity and returns in low-end jobs. Only then will a tertiary sector revolution in India be beneficial to the workers en masse and be sustainable. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper provides the robust stylized facts for recent Japanese business cycle fluctuations, by examining the cyclical component of macroeconomic time series based on the frequency domain analysis. The results confirm many of the conventional views on business cycles in Japan. Among the most interesting findings are that non-scheduled hours worked plays a key role as a buffer for labor inputs. Distinctively, because of the behavior of non-scheduled cash earnings and bonuses, wages in Japan are very sensitive to changes in the level of economic activity. Also significant, the relationship between money and output has changed dramatically after the collapse of the bubble economy in 1991. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Unemployment and underemployment are the most pressing problems in Asia today, as reflected in the widespread underutilization rate of about 29% of the total labor force. Most labor forces in developing countries cannot afford to be completely unemployed and the standard labor force framework currently in use worldwide is biased toward counting the labor force as employed rather than unemployed. This systematically undervalues the full extent of the unemployment problem. The underemployment indicator is then introduced to overcome the issue but the existing guidelines for measuring time related-underemployment using the cut-off point for working full-time, set the threshold too low, resulting in the considerable under-representation of underemployment. This paper suggests a better way of determining the threshold using the cluster method. The robustness of its results is assessed and the overall results suggest that the proposed cut-off point of 40 working hours per week is the best one. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During the 1997 economic crisis in Asia, we observed that several East Asian economies encountered significant external and internal shocks that led to a widespread economic recession. The severe exchange rate depreciation may have harmed the supply side of these economies such that production was contracted. Many argue that the initial tightened domestic policies aimed at countering these shocks and restoring economic growth may have further exacerbated the initial crisis by contracting the domestic sector. This paper analyzes the impact of anticipated and unanticipated changes in the real exchange rate, fiscal spending, the money supply, and energy prices on output and price in Korea, Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, and Thailand. The results indicate that anticipated real depreciation during the crisis may have adversely affected the supply side, shrinking output growth while accelerating price inflation. In contrast, the combined effects of supply and demand channels render the outcome of unanticipated currency depreciation inconclusive on output growth and price inflation. Indonesia and Malaysia have experienced a significant reduction in average real output growth beyond the crisis period with a significant increase in domestic price inflation in Indonesia only. In most cases, we credit accommodating policies for countering external shocks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Four Asian economies – Hong Kong, Singapore, Korea and Taiwan – have grown at spectacular speeds adopting different strategies. Past debates focused on their growth takeoff. The present paper studies their future outlook. As an economy matures, sustaining economic performance requires innovation and technology upgrading. Hong Kong, under a minimalist administration, is now critically deficient in technology. Singapore, dependent on foreign multinationals, is struggling to become a creator and not just a user of technology. We seek to explain why Hong Kong and Singapore are so much less innovative than Korea and Taiwan. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The pre-crisis exchange rate regimes of Asian countries are often described as soft or de facto dollar pegs. There is also a widespread suspicion that many countries in the region still remain covert dollar-peggers. This paper provides evidence that even before 1997 few Asian currencies were tied to the dollar as rigidly as widely believed, and even less so in recent years. Our discussion has implications for debate about the root cause of the Asian crisis and also for the more general issue of developing countries' fear of floating. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the current debate on globalization, a central concern is that foreign direct investment (FDI) may relocate jobs from high-income countries to labor-abundant economies forcing a competitive downward decline in real wages all around, known as 'race to the bottom' (RTB). The core of the RTB hypothesis is that FDI inflows increase the elasticity of demand for labor. This is a necessary condition for pushing wages downward toward minimum or subsistence levels in the global labor market. This paper provides empirical evidence from four Asian economies (China, the Philippines, Singapore, and Thailand) that support the RTB argument. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In a large-scale study of purchasing agents in Australia, New Zealand, Thailand and China, the authors investigated the factors deemed influential in respondents' industrial procurement decisions, the role played by a variety of functional departments, and the effects of major environmental factors on this process. The paper reports a number of expected and unexpected findings in relation to the internal process of influence and confirms the need for industrial marketers to bear in mind the multiple requirements of the decision-making unit (DMU). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since mid-1997 East Asia, which had long been acclaimed as the driving force of the global economy, has been wracked by financial turmoil. The international policy response has been led primarily by the International Monetary-Fund with the full support of both the United States government and the European Union. Those who predicted that IMF policy prescriptions would quickly bring the Asian economic crisis under control have seriously underestimated the depth of the recession that has hit the region. This paper offers an explanation of the causes of the crises and, in doing so, provides a critique of the international policy response. It begins with an examination of the way that the crisis exemplifies the terminal collapse of Southeast Asia's fast-track development model through case studies of Thailand and the Philippines. The second part offers a critical analysis of the IMF policies which have not only institutionalized stagnation in the region but have been used overtly by the Clinton administration (and the EU by default) to promote the trade and investment objectives of the leading states in the global economy. The third part examines the implications of IMF-directed structural adjustment and suggests that with the strategic withdrawal of capital, East Asia may be on the threshold of a prolonged era of recession. The conclusion argues that the very severity of the crisis demands the serious consideration of a range of alternative political and economic strategies that will be essential for the pursuit of a model of sustainable development in the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines the extent to which working for a nonprofit organization (NPO) is associated with happiness in five Asian societies. The dataset of the World Values Survey is employed for empirical analysis. The findings indicate that NPO employment has a favorable effect on happiness and that the roles of NPO workers influence this effect. The increased sense of well-being associated with working for NPOs is related to workers' occupations, and this relationship is particularly significant for nonsupervisory and highly skilled workers. The happiness enhancement effect is irrelevant for NPO workers engaged in manual tasks. Part-time employment by NPOs is associated with relatively limited enhancement of happiness. Enhancing all employees' well-being is crucial for the sustainability of NPOs. On the basis of our findings, we suggest that NPOs should implement policies to determine the sources of employee stress to help create a happier workforce and achieve organizational missions effectively. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The quest for the development of financial system has been the major concern of the Asian economies over the years. Using a System Generalized Methods of Moments technique for 44 Asian countries over the period 1980–2017, we evaluate the effect of financial development on economic growth for the entire Asia, sub-regions and groups of the countries by their levels of income. Additionally, we considered the subcomponents of the financial system. The contribution of this study hinges on the use of a comprehensive measure of financial development, and consideration of the heterogeneity of the Asian countries concerning the finance-growth nexus. The findings revealed that financial development spurs economic growth in Asia. Specifically, the development of financial institutions have a greater impact than development of financial markets on growth of upper-middle and high-income countries while the reverse is the case for low and low-middle income countries in the continent. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the 1997 Asian financial crisis and the launch of the European Economic and Monetary Union shortly afterward, a growing number of studies have considered the idea of a so-called Asian Monetary System, mostly adopting the European Monetary System as its model. The operational adjustment burdens in the European Monetary System were asymmetrically distributed, however, in particular between Germany and the other member countries. The emulation of such an asymmetric system in East Asia is not likely to be sustainable, due to the much lower support for regional integration there than was the case in Europe. For a future Asian Monetary System to be sustainable, it should be designed in such a way as to promote symmetry in the adjustment burdens arising from its operation. To this end, it may be desirable for the Asian Monetary System to employ an exchange rate and intervention mechanism that levies adjustment burdens largely on participant currencies deviating substantially from the average member currency movements. This mechanism should also be constructed in such a way that each currency's probability of identification as a deviant currency is similar. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Comments on an article discussion the conflicts between the West and Asia in the age of globalization and its ideology of liberal values. Role of extra-territoriality; Importance of religion, particularly Christianity; Features of a successful Capitalist society.

This study uses the seemingly-unrelated regression method in panel data to test for the mean-reversion behavior in stock returns in eight Asian and Pacific Basin markets: Hong Kong, Indonesia, Korea, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, Taiwan, and Thailand. The empirical evidence suggests that an investor cannot use the information contained in stock performances in precious periods to consistently earn abnormal profits. A fundamental implication of the efficient market theory is that successive security returns are serially independent. Hence the empirical evidence is consistent with the spirit of the efficiency market theory. This would suggest a hands-off approach for the policy-makers with regard to the equity market in these countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigates the relationship among CO2 emissions, biomass energy consumption, economic growth and urbanization for a panel of 13 Asian developing countries. The panel cointegration tests suggest that there is a long-run equilibrium relationship among CO2 emissions, biomass energy consumption, economic growth and urbanization. The findings from the FMOLS estimation indicate that overall biomass energy consumption cannot reduce CO2 emissions. The results of panel causality tests show that there is a short-run unidirectional causality running from GDP to biomass energy consumption and a short-run one-way causality running from GDP and urbanization to CO2 emissions, respectively. As for the long-run relationship, the findings indicate that there is unidirectional causality running from CO2 emissions, biomass energy consumption and urbanization to GDP, respectively, implying that real GDP could play a key role in the adjustment process as the system departs from long-run equilibrium. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The pivotal role of energy in the progression of economic growth cannot be overlooked. Given its importance to policymakers, the influence of energy use on economic growth is undeniably crucial and thus should be explored meticulously. This study empirically examines the impact of energy on economic growth within the production function framework of a panel of 10 developing Asian economies from 1990Q1 to 2014Q4. The pooled mean group, fully modified ordinary least squares, and dynamic ordinary least squares methods are implemented. Empirical results reveal that energy has a significant positive impact on economic growth, thereby suggesting that energy is an important factor of production in addition to human and physical capital. The implication of the finding suggests that all 10 Asian economies are energy dependent and thus can propel economic growth by sustaining energy supply, which can largely improve social welfare. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Hedge funds and private equity funds are two of the most discussed features of contemporary global finance. This article explores the extent to which these new financial forms have arisen outside of the US and a small number of other advanced financial markets. There has been greater experimentation with global finance in emerging markets than is often acknowledged and domestic resistance to Anglo-Saxon business processes has not derailed the spread of new finance across the Asian region. The rise of these new financial industries, with the notable exception of Japan, would have been impossible without the commitment of one key domestic actor. Asian institutional investors, especially pension funds, have served as crucial financiers to hedge funds and private equity groups. The article concludes with caution concerning whether these new financial actors are set to capture significant global market share. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

East Asia has experienced fast economic growth along with large inflows of foreign direct investment (FDI) and accumulated human capital since the 1960s. Economic literature suggests a link between FDI and human capital development via technology transfer. This study employs a panel of sample data from 16 East Asian countries from 1985 to 2010 to examine the effect of inward FDI on human capital accumulation. The results show that an increase in foreign presence is associated with an increase in secondary schooling, yet has a negative impact on tertiary schooling. FDI from OECD countries presents positive effects on both secondary and tertiary schooling in East Asian countries. The findings are robust to different measures of educational attainment and different specifications. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

We derive a Frankel–Romer instrument from a global trade matrix of 157 countries over the period 1990–2007, and deploy it to assess the relationship between international trade, domestic market potential and income for the case of developing Asia, compared to the world average. The findings from panel instrumental variable regression confirm international trade to have caused income to rise on average across all the trading nations, but particularly so for countries of developing Asia, where this effect appears to be strongest. By contrast, domestic trade potential as explained by country size is found to be less relevant a factor explaining the rise in income of developing Asia. In light of a likely softening of external demand for Asian exports, as global rebalancing will take hold, Asia's underexploited domestic market potential represents considerable scope for the region to step up its efforts to gradually reinforce the domestic and regional dimensions as an additional engine of growth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Women's empowerment in relation to microcredit programmes is a prominent issue in the literature of microcredit. Not only the founder of the Grameen Bank is awarded the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize on the microcredit programme of Bangladesh but it has also been a topic of great interest to researchers since its introduction in mid-1970s. This study views women's empowerment from an emancipation perspective. The study uses quasi-experimental approach to compare women's empowerment between microcredit borrowers and non-borrowers. Using control-group method (non-borrowers from non-programme villages), this study identifies factors that influence women's empowerment. It also examines the impact on women's empowerment of borrowers having different levels of income. Results show that non-borrowers are equally empowered as microcredit borrowers. It has also been found that age and education levels of women are significant factors in such an empowerment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article relates the postwar economic transition in Eastern Asia to long-run developments in international trade (1906–1999). The role of foreign trade in transition growth is analysed by applying structural economic theory. A trade perspective allows for studying economic transition as a long-term phenomenon revealing a process of structural change in detail, and positioning economic development in a wider context of phases of globalization and de-globalization (1850–1013 and from the 1950s onwards) as well as de-globalization (1914–1950). Trade developments in Eastern Asia are compared with the Latin American record in foreign trade. The article argues that the expansion of trade in the Asian region during the era of globalization backlash (1914–1950) initiated important structural changes and a new international division of labour facilitating post-war rapid economic growth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines the dynamic interrelationship among the major stock markets and in the four Asian markets (Malaysia, Thailand, Taiwan and South Korea), both in the short run and in the long run. To investigate the impact of financial reforms and the Asian financial crisis on these markets, we split the sample into three sub-periods: pre-liberalization (1988-91), post-liberalization (1992-96) and post-crisis (1997-99) periods. The empirical results suggest that all the Asian markets are closely linked with each other and with the world capital markets, namely those of the US and Japan, over the post-liberalization era. Overall, the evidence shows that the degree of integration between the Asian emerging markets and the US increased following the deregulation period, and that the relationship has intensified since the onset of the Asian crisis. There is no evidence to show that Japan has overtaken the US in dominating the Asian equity markets. In addition, our results show that the interrelationship among the Asian national markets has been affected by the crisis. Specifically, the crisis-affected countries of Malaysia and Thailand are increasingly interrelated with South Korea and Taiwan in the post-crash period. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines Japan's commitments to the developmental state concept after the Asian economic and currency crises. Some aspects of the concept have been regarded as the causes of the crises, and Japan was seen as failing to defend effectively its own developmental model. However, the Japanese government has strengthened policies and institutions for industrial cooperation toward East Asia after the crises, stressing the elements of the developmental state such as close business-government collaboration and effective uses of public corporations as measures to rehabilitate the growth model in East Asia. In its efforts to assist industrial restructuring in Thailand, the Japanese government made its Thai counterpart acknowledge the necessity of state intervention in fostering small and medium-sized enterprises, and sought to transfer experiences and know-how of institution building such as the advisory council system, the policy finance system and industrial development coordinated by trade associations. Thus, the Japanese government maintained and partially intensified the developmental state approach in its cooperation with industrial restructuring programmes in major East Asian countries after the Asian crises. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The second Asia-Europe (ASEM) meeting took place in London in April 1998 in very different circumstances from the first, held in Bangkok in 1996. The Europeans had then been motivated to build stronger links with rising Asian interests, addressing the developmentalist states of the region as equal and perhaps superior partners. By the spring of 1998 the Asian financial crisis had transformed the situation, and ASEM II became a forum in which conformity to neoliberal principles was pressed upon them. It seemed at the time that the European Union was bidding to define and claim leadership of a new regime of global economic governance along systematically neoliberal lines. However, as the crisis spread and deepened, and the political, economic and social consequences spread through Southeast Asia in particular, it became clear that even if such a global regime could be defined, significant doubts surrounded the ability and the will of leaders in the region and beyond to implement it. If the ASEM meetings could be considered as a component part of a larger architecture of global economic regulation, then they remained as much an index of the extent of the problem, as an outline of the eventual shape of the solution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The authors use cointegration techniques to test for: (i) purchasing power parity (PPP) on the bilateral exchange rate between Cambodia and Thailand; and (ii) the existence of a long-run equilibrium relationship between the official and parallel market exchange rates. The period under study is the phase of economic transition in Cambodia from central planning to a market economy during which inflation accelerated and then decelerated. The findings for the first test support the relative version of the PPP hypothesis. The second test draws on portfolio balance theory in the context of a dual exchange rate system. The findings indicate that parallel and official exchange rates are cointegrated, implying that during the period of monetary adjustment official and parallel market exchange rates depreciated in the same proportion over the long run. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The latest currency crisis in Asia clearly shows that the traditional exchange rate policy of pegging to the dollar is no longer consistent with macroeconomic stability in Asia's developing countries, and that they should peg closer to the Japanese yen. The weakening yen since mid-1995 was a major factor triggering the crisis in Asia which has led to a further depreciation of the yen. Severing the vicious circle between economic deceleration in Asia and a weakening yen is crucial for the Asian economies to recover. Japan can help Asia as well as itself by pursuing a policy mix of stimulating domestic demand and pushing the yen up against the dollar. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]