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This paper seeks to assess industrial upgrading in the semiconductor industry in East Asia. Research into 25 firms, and subsequently the entire value chain specialization of these firms, as well as...

Human immunodeficiency viruses (HIV) counselling and testing (HCT) plays a major role in the continuum of HIV programmes in Nigeria. However, HIV-related stigma (STGM) poses a serious threat to its success. Consequently, a cross-sectional study was carried out to examine whether STGM mediates the relationships between the explanatory variables (HIV-related knowledge, HIV transmission misconception (MSHIV), and perceived seriousness of HIV/acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS)), and the outcome variable (HCT service utilization). The mediation analysis was undertaken using data from 768 individuals collected through convenience sampling in the Local Government Areas of Alimosho, Ikorodu, and Surulere of Lagos state, and deploying partial least squares–structural equation modelling. The results show that STGM played a mediating role in the relationship between MSHIV, perceived seriousness of HIV/AIDS, and HCT utilization. These findings offer wide ramifications for the intensification and enforcement of Nigeria’s HIV/AIDS Anti-Discrimination Act 2014 to eradicate stigma, which is important to enhance uptake of HCT to achieve the United Nations’ 90-90-90 HIV targets by 2020.

This paper examines the impact of wealth inequality on education inequality in the sub-Saharan African (SSA) countries, including by decomposing inequality across gender. Specifically, it analyzes ...

Indonesia ratified the agreement on the establishment of the World Trade Organization, including its annex agreement, the Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) in 1995. The ...

This study examined the association between health condition and conversion factors (i.e. environmental, individual and social) among workers in the ready-made garment (RMG) industry in Bangladesh. It used data gathered from a cross-sectional survey of 775 RMG workers in the Dhaka and Narayanganj districts. Using multiple logistic regression, the study found that: (1) achieving good health among RMG workers is hindered by various factors including high job-related demands, high noise levels, workplace crowding, heavy workloads, and low level of educational attainment; (2) job-related rewards and marital status have contributed to achieving good health; (3) health condition of workers is worse for women than for men; and (4) poor health condition is more prevalent among the oldest age group than in the lowest age category. The main contributions of this research: (1) this study develops a comprehensive framework to determine the factors affecting the health condition of manufacturing workers in general, and RMG workers in particular; and (2) it also examines the effects of both psychosocial and physical working conditions on the health of RMG workers.

This article analyses climate mitigation impact once the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) introduce their respective Intended Nationally Determined Contribution (INDC) using dynamic n...

Global warming has emerged as one of the most serious threats to the existence of humankind. There is also increasing acknowledgement that old arguments that focused on the exhaustion of economic r...

This paper attempts to evaluate potential reductions in climate damage following the introduction of hydrogen fuel cell vehicles in Malaysia over the period 2015–2030. The simulation produced inter...

Open innovation has become a popular approach, especially since 2003, as people began purposively managing, evolving and harnessing knowledge flows across organizational boundaries but through increasing connections with systemic knowledge nodes relevant to the innovation process. The creation and appropriation of such knowledge has evolved rapidly with digitalization and the proliferation of broadband networks. Individuals, firms and organizations now connect and coordinate to support innovations openly across innovation systems. This paper proposes an open systems model with institutional underpinnings to not only quicken knowledge flows and expand the networks to a wider range of socioeconomic agents, but also for their inclusive participation in shaping the processes of achieving sustainable development through environmental greening and egalitarian balancing of society. In doing so, using examples, the paper focuses on developments since Schumpeter&rsquo, s groundbreaking exposition on innovation to explain how individuals, firms, farms and organizations can all participate actively in open innovation networks that connect the critical knowledge nodes.

Most accounts of successful technological catch up and the diffusion of foreign sources of knowledge have focused on the role of federal governments. Little is known of how successful sub-national government strategies have evolved to stimulate technological upgrading in particular locations. This paper shows how a network of unique collaboration links that evolved between the Penang government and organizations, foreign multinationals and national firms helped forge strong flows of knowledge among integrated circuits (IC) firms in the sub-national region. Although Penang’s and Kulim High Tech Park’s IC firms still lag technologically behind IC firms in Korea and Taiwan, the evolution of productive networking at the sub-national level has helped stimulate technological upgrading in the region.

This paper investigates the dynamic effects of external debt on economic growth in Nigeria from 1970 through 2013. We begin by constructing an external debt sustainability index using principal component analysis to capture the overall effects of external debt indicators on economic growth. The empirical analysis is based on the ARDL bound test. The results show a long-run cointegration relationship between the variables. While external debt exerts an adverse effect of −0.069 per cent on growth in the long run, the external debt sustainability index shows a positive effect of 0.072 per cent and 0.024 per cent on growth in the long and short run. The findings suggest the government should reduce its expenditure and mobilize revenue through domestic sources to invest in projects with a high rate of return to enable debt repayment and stimulate growth. To maintain debt ratios within a manageable threshold so as to avoid being debt trapped, foreign loans should only be contracted on concessional terms.

While mainstream accounts of globalization are telling us that liberalization is essential for engendering the conditions of prosperity across the world, we argue that selective interventions are necessary to ensure that these processes open the path to the high road to industrialization. While recognizing the importance of relative surplus appropriation through technological deepening as the engine of capitalist accumulation, the extant evidence suggests that a proactive state focusing on enhancing labour is pertinent to ensure sustainable long-term industrialization and structural change so that the material conditions of workers improve over time. Hence, this article provides the introduction to globalization, industrialization and labour market experiences in selected East and South Asian economies.

Although increasing globalizations spurred rapid industrialization in Malaysia, this article shows that the lack of significant technological upgrading and structural change has caused the premature plateauing of manufacturing, stemming from failures to coordinate policies, enforce standards, sustain high productivity growth and stimulate transition to higher value-added activities. Manufacturing as a whole has registered slow wage growth since the late 1990s, with labour markets characterized by heavy presence of low-skilled foreign workers, increased contract labour and outsourcing and declining worker organization. The focus on perspiration-based low-skilled foreign labour rather than on expanding professional and skilled labour has driven Malaysia down the low industrialization road. The Malaysian experience reflects a case of manufacturing's importance and direct contribution to the economy contracting before recording high levels of value added and sustained productivity growth, and with labour mark...

This article examines the impact of foreign capital inflows and export expansion on employment and wages in the clothing industry in Myanmar. Although economic sanctions since 2003 by the United States affected foreign capital inflows, the evidence shows that clothing exports have steadily recovered since 2005. While wages in the industry are still low, they have improved over the period 2006–2012. Foreign firms showed higher mean wages, export-intensity and technological capabilities than national firms. The statistical results show that foreign equity has a positive impact on export-intensity and technological capabilities. Also, wages and employment were positively linked to export-intensity and technological capabilities. Hence, despite the exploitative nature of capitalist integration, the clothing industry shows that not only has wages and employment grown, the statistical results suggest that they will grow further.

China's experience with globalization is still contested. This paper seeks to examine the impact of global integration and industrialization on labour markets in China. The evidence shows that rising trade and flows of foreign direct investment has not only quickened industrialization and structural change but it has also stimulated a rapid rise in overall and manufacturing real wages. The government's framework of absorbing marketization while maintaining planning control through decentralization has been critical in the development of technological capabilities in manufacturing. Although the nature of economic development after reforms has also widened regional inequalities with the Eastern coastal provinces enjoying higher growth and structural change than the Western and other inland provinces, rising wages suggest that the material conditions of the majority of workers in China have improved.

This article analyses size-based differences in export intensity (X/Y) and technological capabilities in Sri Lankan manufacturing firms. Consistent with evolutionary arguments, the results show that size-based differences in X/Y and technological capabilities vary across industries. After controlling for age, the results show that large firms were more export intensive than SMEs in the clothing industry, while it was the opposite in the food and beverage industry. Large firms enjoyed an edge over SMEs in human resource (HR) capability in the rubber industry and process technology (PT) in the food and beverage industry. SMEs enjoyed higher adaptive capabilities than large firms in the clothing and food and beverage industries. Scale dimensions mattered in HR capability in the rubber industry and PT capability in the food and beverage industry. Flexibility to support changes in demand were important in explaining the higher adaptive engineering capabilities enjoyed by SMEs compared with large firms in the c...

Using the evolutionary framework, this paper examines differences in technological capabilities between joint-ventures with over 10% foreign equity and fully national owned suppliers located in the...

This paper seeks to examine how local automotive parts firms’ technological capabilities have evolved vis-a-vis foreign firms, following increased liberalization from the late 1990s. The evidence amassed shows that there were no obvious statistical differences in human resource and process technology capabilities between foreign and local firms in 2006. Although foreign firms enjoyed superior product technologies with access to their subsidiaries, local firms have invested more in research and development technology to compete with them. The results confirm that the liberalization experience has driven rather than discouraged stronger initiatives in local firms to raise technological capabilities, though foreign firms still enjoy higher export intensities.

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.

Using the technological capability methodology, this paper examines the development of technological capabilities and economic performance in a sample of electronics firms in Malaysia. The technological capabilities improved significantly in both the broader category of electronics and in the specialized category of semiconductors as firms upgraded to participate in the higher levels of knowledge intensities. However, the incidence of participation of firms in the highest levels of five and six knowledge-intensity activities was very low, which has slowed down labour productivity growth in the industry. The statistical results show that technological deepening through increments in skills and research and development personnel will raise labour productivity in the industry significantly. Hence, the paper argues that government policy should stimulate firms’ participation in frontier innovation activities to quicken technological catch-up and productivity growth.

Using the evolutionary framework of inductive screening, this paper seeks to examine the drivers of technological catch-up in the integrated circuits (ICs) industry in Taiwan and China. The paper shows that IC manufacturing began with multinationals relocating export-oriented assembly operations in the 1960s in Taiwan and in the 1980s in China, but serious technological catch-up took place when, with the assistance of the government, local firms began to participate in wafer fabrication and designing activities. While foreign ownership and export markets were critical in initiating connections in the global IC value chain, the paper argues that the role of the government through funding, research and development laboratories and development of human capital were critical in local firms’ technological catch-up process in both the countries.

This paper introduces the state of industrialization in Southeast Asia, rationale used to promote industrialization, the timing of policy emphasis on export orientation and the different outcomes enjoyed by the market and transition economies. Although a number of economies have experimented with import substitution policies, industrialization in the Southeast Asian economies is largely driven by export markets. The paper ends by providing the setting for a deeper scrutiny of manufacturing issues selectively by industry in Southeast Asia.

This paper examines the growth and slowdown in the electronics industry in Southeast Asia. American, Japanese and European multinational corporations relocated operations in Singapore, Malaysia and Philippines in the late 1960s and early 1970s to begin electronics assembly, packaging and testing, which was followed in the late 1980s and 1990s by the relocation of electronics manufacturing from Japanese, European, American, Korean, Singaporean and Taiwanese multinationals to the above Southeast Asian countries as well as Thailand and Indonesia. Whereas Singapore has managed significant upgrading to designing and development activities through the provision of grants, incentives, labs and strong infrastructure coordination, electronics production in the remaining countries has largely remained entrenched in assembly, packaging and testing activities. The failure of Malaysia and Thailand to support technological upgrading has undermined the capacity of these economies to sustain rapid growth of the industry ...

This paper uses the systemic quad to examine the strength of the embedding support and firm-level technological capabilities of garment firms in Cambodia and Laos. Although garment exports have surged in both countries, it is argued in the paper that its sustenance will require institutional capacity building. Laos is the more disadvantaged of the two countries as it is landlocked and endowed with too small a labour force. The paper argues that unless the institutional and firm-level technological capabilities are developed further, both countries will find it difficult to retain a significant presence of garment firms once the preferential trade privileges are withdrawn.

This paper uses the technological capabilities framework for examining differences in technological intensities and economic performance between foreign and local food and beverage, and textile and garment firms and metal engineering firms in Kenya. Foreign firms had statistically significant higher labour productivity means than local firms in textile and garment manufacturing. Foreign firms were also more export- and technology-intensive than local firms in textile and garment (process technology and R&D) and metal engineering (HR). Foreign firms had higher and statistically significant skills and overall technology (TI) means than local firms in food and beverages. The econometric exercise showed that foreign ownership had a statistically significant and positive relationship with overall technological and HR intensities. In labour productivity, the coefficient of TI was higher in the foreign firms' sample than in the local firms' sample. Local firms had higher value added in domestic than export marke...

This paper examines the importance of network strength (NS) on the technological intensities (TI) of electronics firms. TI was disentangled into the categories of human resource (HR), process technology (PT) and R&D (RD) intensities, and the differences between foreign and local firms. The results show that firms in Korea and Taiwan endowed with superior NS enjoy significantly higher skill intensity, TI and RD than firms in Malaysia and Thailand, which have inferior NS. There were no obvious differences in HR practices between foreign and local firms in the four countries. Local firms enjoyed higher TI and RD than foreign firms in Taiwan. There was no statistical difference involving all the technological categories between foreign and local firms in Korea. Foreign firms in Malaysia enjoyed statistically superior TI compared with local firms. Local firms in Thailand showed higher TI and PT than foreign firms. TI and RD of firms are strongly correlated with NS, which showed a stronger impact on TI and RD a...

This article seeks to compare the export incidence and technological capabilities of foreign and local electronics firms in Malaysia, the Philippines and Thailand, and to explain their determinants. Foreign firms generally produced higher human resource and process technology capabilities than local firms in Malaysia and Thailand. Although foreign firms were generally endowed with higher research and development (R and D) capabilities in Malaysia and Thailand, local firms enjoyed higher technological capabilities than foreign firms in the Philippines. Statistically, only process technology, human resources, and R and D (indirectly through links with process technology) were linked with exports. Owing to low intensity levels, R and D enjoyed little relationship with the other explanatory variables. Foreign ownership was strongly correlated with exports, but its statistical link with process technology, human resources and R and D capabilities was not significant, which is likely to be a cause of the need t...

The introduction of the Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPs) under the World Trade Organisation (WTO) has opened again the debate on the importance of regulation for economic efficiency and welfare across a diverse spectrum of economies. Using the free trade-state intervention debate as the theoretical anchor, this article examines the impact of the agreement on technology capability building in East and South Asian economies. Given that both free trade and interventionist privately governed intellectual property rights face a range of problems and that the selective application of theoretical strengths to policy is difficult, it is difficult to extract clear-cut conclusions. The article makes the point that Japan and, to a less extent, the Asian NIEs are well positioned to enforce compliance and sustain technological development. China among the second-tier NIEs enjoys the best high tech and IPR infrastructure to make the transition to NIE status. The remaining second-tier NIEs lack the high tech infrastructure to sustain strong technological development activities, though their IPR infrastructure is sufficiently developed to enforce compliance. India, Pakistan, Vietnam and Sri Lanka demonstrate selected technological capabilities, but their overall infrastructure is too weak to engender broad-based technology development, and ensure compliance. Brunei and Macao can comply with the TRIPs obligations. The remaining economies neither have sufficient capabilities to participate strongly in technology development nor the IPR infrastructure to enforce compliance. While the TRIPs process might offer room for consensus building, it is unlikely that the poorer economies will enjoy a fair representation given the power asymmetry between members.

This paper examines the power topography of international private capital movements with specific reference to FDI and portfolio equity flows. A number of important development conclusions emerge from the paper. There exists little relationship between incomes and levels of FDI participation, although developed and resource-endowed economies have received greater inflows. While greater liberalization from the mid-1980s has stimulated the explosive growth of portfolio equity capital flows, it has also exposed developing economies to serious systemic risks. Contrary to neoliberal arguments, developing economies that have managed to utilize FDI effectively and to prevent systemic volatility generated from portfolio capital movements from seriously destabilizing them, have generally relied on effective governments. Inter-country economic development has become increasingly unequal in the period 1980-97. While the material conditions of the majority of developing economies have improved, those located in Afric...

The Malaysian economy crashed following a sharp drop in the ringgit and the stock market from late 1997, which came in the wake of a regional financial crisis triggered by the baht crisis that started in July 1997. Many have since begun to question the merits of Malaysia as a model of successful development. This paper traces systematically the causes of the late 1980s and early 1990s boom, and the slowdown subsequently. The boom is argued to have been shaped by increased flows of foreign direct investment through a combination of pressures forcing East Asian investment abroad and liberalisation of domestic policies and favourable depreciation in exchange rates and introduction of export‐oriented incentives, which even helped pad crony ventures. The slowdown was triggered by an appreciation of exchange rates, falling tariffs and scrapping of export‐oriented incentives, which encouraged imports and discouraged exports, slowdown in foreign investment inflows, slow technological progress in the face...

The electronics industry in Malaysia was assigned a central role in creating urban jobs for the indigenous Malays and restructuring their employment from low- to high-paying activities. The initial labour-intensive phase generated jobs but failed to provide openings for Malays higher up in the occupational hierarchy. In the current phase, a buoyant economy makes job creation per se less important; but the growing technological sophistication in the industry threatens to undermine the restructuring of Malay employment because many Malays lack the critical skills necessary to take advantage of this development. This article reviews these issues and suggests policy initiatives.