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This paper documents the growing importance of intra-East Asian trade of parts and components.Our empirical analysis shows that foreign direct investment (FDI) does play an important and independent role in facilitating the trade of parts and components in East Asia. This is true for FDI from all three source countries: the United States, Japan, and South Korea. Furthermore, our empirical studies show that compared with U.S. and Korean FDI, FDI from Japan has a particularly strong influence on trade in parts and components as well as trade in capital goods. One policy implication is that economies need to improve their physical infrastructure as well as the quality of their institutions to integrate further into the East Asian production network. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As trade integration deepens in East Asia, closer links among the business cycles of East Asian countries can be expected. Theoretically, however, increased trade could lead to either closer or looser business cycles across trading partners. This paper seeks to understand how the business cycles of 12 Asian economies have been influenced by increased trade among them. It finds that the increasing trade itself is not necessarily associated with an increased synchronization of their business cycles. Intra-industry trade, rather than inter-industry trade or the volume of trade itself, is the major channel through which their business cycles become synchronized. This result has important implications for the prospects for a unified currency in the region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Referring to the short-term survival of new progressive governments, ‘progressive setback’ has been a remarkable political phenomenon in many East Asian countries during the recent decades. Regarding this phenomenon's background, this paper investigates why and how urban citizens challenged their progressive governments in Thailand, South Korea, and Japan. First, this paper argues that the progressive setback across East Asia reflects the difficulty progressive governments faced in overcoming the legacy of longstanding conservative regimes, which had locked urban citizens into specific modes of subsistence. The progressives invoked the protest of urban populations as their new socioeconomic policies undermined these populations’ traditional basis of subsistence. Second, an investigation of the primary modes of urban subsistence in each country makes the cross-national comparison of progressive setback possible. Urban middle classes in Thailand, as an exclusive group incorporated into the mainstream political economy, engaged in a fierce contest with a progressive government that denied their privileged status in Thai society. In Korea, the self-employed turned to the conservative party since market restructuring programs of the progressive government made it difficult for these self-employed to maintain profits and sustain their livelihood. Finally, Japan's urban workers could not welcome the welfare expansion of the new labor-friendly government, because this class was too dependent upon wage incomes to agree with the consumption tax hike that welfare expansion required as its precondition. This paper implies that the old habits of urban citizens are an important hurdle for East Asia's progressives to overcome. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The article presents a summary of general discussion on the paper "Whither East Asian Regionalism? An ASEAN Perspective," by Siow Yue Chia. Zainal Aznam Yusof opened his discussion by questioning the optimistic scenario given in Siow's paper about the implementation of the ASEAN Economic Community (AEC) proposal set out at the Association of South-East Asian Nations (ASEAN) summit in October 2003. Yusof argued that economic cooperation initiatives in ASEAN countries had been driven by politics rather than economics. However, Paul Blustein argued that private agents were quite indifferent about regional trading agreements.

Despite its relevance and importance in the emerging global order, the partnership between South Korea and the Middle East somehow has failed to capture due attention from the pundits of geostrategy and international political economy. In the conventional discourse, the two entities have neither been characterized as natural allies nor have they been considered as equal trade partners. The engagement and interaction between South Korea and the Middle East has been limited to a story revolving around the narrative of energy security and construction assignments. In an effort to provide a more inclusive view on South Korea-Middle East relations, this paper examines the context and catalysts that are shaping the evolving partnership between the two sides and are opening new vistas for further consolidation. The paper argues that even in the current geopolitical constraints, South Korea and the Middle East have a compelling case than ever before to reignite their partnership for mutual prosperity and peace. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A call for papers on global financial crises is presented.

This paper studies the link between macro-financial variability and bank behaviour, which justifies the second-round effects of the global financial crisis on East Asia. Following Gallego et al. (The impact of the global economic and financial crisis on Central Eastern and South Eastern Europe (CESEE) and Latin America, 2010), the second round effects are defined as the adverse feedback loop from the slumps in economic activities and sharp financial market deterioration, which may influence the financial performance of bank, inter alia via deteriorating credit quality, declining profitability and increasing problems in retaining necessary capitalization. Differentiating itself from other research, this study stresses adjustments in four dimensions of bank performance and behaviour: asset quality, profitability, capital adequacy, and lending behaviour, assuming that any change in a bank-specific characteristic is induced by endogenous adjustments of the others. The empirical results based on partial adjustment models and two-step system GMM estimation show that bank's adjustment behaviour is subject to the variation in the macro-financial environment and the stress condition in the global financial market. There is no convincing evidence to support the effectiveness of policy rate cut to boots bank lending and to avoid a financial accelerator effect. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using a modified gravity model and the cross-sectional data of East Asian economies, the present paper presents evidence that supports the view that the effect of distance-related transaction costs on trade tends to fall over time. Overall religious influence on foreign trade exists in the post-Cold War period but not during the Cold War period. The effects of language on inter-regional trade and of religion on intra-regional trade both weaken over time. In all cases, religion tends to have more significant influences on intra-regional trade than language, and language tends to exert more significant influences on inter-regional trade than religion. Finally, from 1985 to 1995 there is an indication that: (i) English becomes more important for inter-regional trade; (ii) Bahasa, English and Khmer become less important for intra-regional trade; and (iii) Chinese plays an increasing role in both intra-regional and inter-regional trade. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper uses regime-switching techniques to examine the similarities of GDP growth-cycle features of 10 East Asian countries. A third regime of rapid growth is relevant for most countries. In Japan, South Korea and Taiwan, there was no secular slowdown in growth since the rapid-growth regime re-emerged at some stage. Japan is special since it shares each of its features with different countries, while China shares almost all its features with most countries. Finally, the same countries that were correlated with Japan in the 1980s have been linked with China since the 1990s. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The financial crises of the late 1990s marked an intellectual watershed for the global economy, and also for regionalism as the Janus face of globalization. At the beginning of the twenty-first century, the theory and practice of regional cooperation and integration may evolve along different lines to how it was understood for most of the second half of the twentieth century. In East Asia, in particular, this will mean that the relationship between multilateralism and regionalism will change. The 'East Asian' region will become an increasingly important domain within which to explore enhanced protection against financial crises. What we might call 'monetary regionalism', sceptical western voices notwithstanding, is now firmly on the regional agenda in East Asia. Within conventional political economy, the theory and practice of monetary regionalism is not as easy to understand as traditional, trade-driven, regional integration. Thus one aim of this paper is to outline a theory of monetary regionalism and demonstrate the degree to which it represents a break with understandings of the regional project in East Asia prior to the late 1990s. From its start in 1989, APEC claimed to be a new type of regionalism. The promise was that APEC would promote open regionalism. APEC did not achieve this goal. Nor did it provide support to its Asian members during the financial crises of the late 1990s. At the same time, more traditional (what we might call Balassian) understandings of trade-driven regional integration are showing signs of decreasing importance. There is a growing appeal to trade co-operation, but this is notably an increasing interest in bilateral preferential trading arrangements. This leads to a complex picture of competing regional initiatives across the economic policy spectrum. The paper locates these initiatives in the wider context of the growing politico-economic dialogue between Southeast and Northeast Asia that has developed via the ASEAN+3 process since 1997. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ABSTRACT This paper proposes a stylized (hence very partial) explanation of the experience of those economies which, like the East Asian newly industrializing economies, managed to create an economic take-off, characterized by a rapid expansion of manufactured exports, and to maintain for many years a high and relatively stable rate of growth of the economy. The model is based on the hypothesis that growth rate differences across open economies depend on differences in international competitiveness. During the take-off of an open competitive economy, its competitiveness is amplified over time by a Kaldorian process of cumulative causation. To prevent a boundless increase in the growth rate and interpret also a phase of high but approximately constant growth rate the paper introduces what may be called ‘dynamic decreasing returns’, which capture the obstacles to the acceleration of the growth rate. The higher the growth rate of the economy, the more important they become, and eventually they make the growth rate settle on a constant positive path. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper argues that, apart from exchange-rate aspects, the East Asian economic crisis has looked very similar to a domestic banking crisis arising from boom and bust cycles in bank lending and capital investment. One of the key determinants of the boom-bust cycle in East Asia was the sharp appreciation of the yen against the dollar between the mid-1980s and the mid-1990s, and its subsequent depreciation. Real investment and speculative financial capital within and into East Asia responded too much to the yen movements. The paper also discusses factors behind large medium-term movements in the yen-dollar rate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using panel data of 12 middle-income countries in East Asia as well as Latin America, this paper examines how openness in general and outward FDI in particular affects poverty. While economic growth and trade openness are found to be associated with lower poverty, both outward and inward FDI adversely affect the mean income of the poorest quintile of the population. The results hold in both regions, though the Latin American countries seem to be in a somewhat less favorable situation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines economic regionalism in East Asia with a focus on the key issues in harmonizing bilateral free trade agreements. The ASEAN+1 free trade agreements with China, South Korea and Japan represent the first attempts to structure cooperation in trade across Southeast and Northeast Asia. It is therefore important to examine the coverage of these agreements and the extent to which they actually liberalize trade. This study focuses on major choices made in the negotiation of the ASEAN-Japan Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement and the ways in which these choices help or hinder the consolidation of economic regionalism. The results achieved in the ASEAN-Japan Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement are limited at best. The agreement does establish some new areas of cooperation among the signatories but fails to address important issues for regionalism such as labor mobility. It also makes limited progress in harmonizing and liberalizing rules of origin. The ASEAN-Japan Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement applies product-specific rules to fewer categories of goods than most of Japan's bilateral agreements with ASEAN members but those rules in place are still very restrictive. Moreover, the parties to the ASEAN-Japan Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement have the option of applying the rules of their bilateral agreement if it provides more favorable treatment. Thus, there is no guarantee the more liberal terms of the ASEAN-Japan Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement will be applied. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Global Social Policy is the property of Sage Publications Inc. and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The article focuses on the main issues of regulating and supervising banks in emerging markets with a view toward evaluating the long-run options, particularly in Latin America and East Asia. These economies face a severe policy commitment problem that leads to excessive bailouts and potential devaluation of claims of foreign investors. The paper reviews the tradeoffs imposed by external discipline and examines various proposed arrangements.

This paper updates estimates of the trends in income distribution in the eight countries of the developing East and Southeast Asian region. In the last update by Krongkaew (1994 ), inequality was found to be increasing in the newly industrialising economies of Hong Kong, Korea, Singapore and Taiwan, while in the ASEAN−4 (with the exception of Thailand) it was declining. Since then, the region has undergone the East Asian financial crisis of 1997–98. Recent data indicate that income distribution in Hong Kong and Taiwan continues to improve. Income inequality in South Korea declined until 1993 but began to increase slowly until the crisis sharply widened the disparity. The evidence for Singapore is mixed, with one set of estimates showing a dip in inequality while another indicates a widening of income disparity during the crisis. The crisis had the immediate impact of improving income distribution in all the ASEAN–4 countries, mainly because of reductions in the income shares of the top income groups. Later data show that inequality has since risen in all of them, except for Malaysia (for which no recent data are available). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper discusses methodological differences between universalism and particularism in development economics by focusing on the 'East Asian Miracle' debate. It proposes to build development economics as part of hetero-economics, not mono-economics, following Max Weber's methodology of social science, and suggests developing intermediate theories by abstracting directly from given comparative settings. It also discusses the limitations that are inherent in this method, as well as ways to employ the method in actual analyses. This paper argues that the future task of development economics lies in recombining existing theories and developing new, complementing theories that will systematically delineate the diversity of developing countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper discusses regional monetary cooperation for East Asia, by drawing lessons from the European Payments Union, the CFA Franc Zone and the Arab Monetary Fund. Along with the well-known experience of the European Monetary System, these experiences suggest that effective monetary cooperation should include: (1) a surveillance mechanism; (2) a regional financing facility; (3) a common unit of account; and (4) exchange rate coordination. In East Asia, the existing mechanisms of regional surveillance must be strengthened, and the liquidity support mechanism under the Chiang Mai Initiative must evolve into a common pool of foreign exchange reserves. Over the longer term, the region may need to create its own common unit of account and to develop a framework for exchange rate coordination. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the debate on future prospects in East Asia after the recent economic crisis, this paper focuses on trade-based explanations of growth to study whether exports may lead the recovery of the five crisis-hit countries. For each of them, it analyses, at different levels of disaggregation, the evolution of openness to trade, patterns and direction of exports, during and after the crisis. It finds higher openness to trade for all countries, both in aggregate and for major sectors. Moreover, during the crisis it reports only minor negative impacts on competitiveness and structure of exports, mainly for Indonesia and Korea. Regionalisation of export flows seems to have been partially reversed and exports towards non-Asian developed countries increased. These findings, together with evidence of an export revival, suggest that trade can still contribute to fuelling the Financial Crisis Countries' economic growth but also that their recovery is very fragile in the face of the economic cycle in the USA and to boom-bust cycles in the IT sector. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: There is no questioning the immensity of change in Tokyo’s urban landscape over the last few decades, despite the difficulties faced by the Japanese economy. This transformation results from a vigorous promotion of urban restructuring by the state and a keen uptake by corporations. The question examined here is the extent to which Tokyo fits into a palette of policies generally seen as neoliberal and, more generally, how and where Tokyo fits into global narratives of urban change. In order to put some perspective on the nature of urban change in Tokyo, three themes are pursued here that are generally considered to indicate a neoliberal policy turn: a territorial rescaling designed to concentrate energies on places of economic strength; a relaxation of regulations facilitating urban restructuring; and housing and other social policies resulting in residential segregation and producing greater social inequality which finds a spatial expression. In doing this, the paper reviews recent debates in the literature on Tokyo, debates that suggest a difference in view between those who see urban life-spaces as conditioned increasingly by a neoliberal policy approach and others for whom the pattern and spaces of life in Tokyo are colored by a more distinct set of policies molded by the (neo-) developmental state. The paper concludes by arguing that only some elements of a ‘neoliberal urban inventory’ are present in the urban landscape of Tokyo, that they exist within a recognisably neoliberal discursive framework, and that this is best conceptualized within a wider East Asian framework. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Energy security is one of the major global challenges of the twenty-first century. Intensifying competition for ever scarcer forms of conventional energy resources is causing significant tensions in the international system. East Asia will have a more profound impact on global energy security than any other region as its burgeoning demand for energy fuels, spurred principally by China, is expected to continue growing at over twice the world average in the next few decades. This paper examines the reasons why we may expect the energy diplomacies of East Asian states to become an increasingly salient feature of East Asian states’ foreign policy and international relations in the foreseeable future, and thereby significantly shape the nature of the region's international political economy. It presents a framework of energy diplomacy analysis in order to better understand how East Asian states are formulating their energy diplomacy strategies and actions. The four prime elements of this framework comprise: empirical perspectives and generic task-oriented terms; agential influences on the formation and organization of energy diplomacy practice; the energy–development nexus; and transaction mechanisms of energy diplomacy. The main conclusions are first, mercantilist approaches to energy diplomacy will persist but continue to gradually give way to market institutionalism; second, energy diplomacy will become increasingly linked to other forms of diplomacy, such as trade, environment and development assistance; third, we may expect East Asian states to afford greater priority to multilateral energy co-operation both regionally and in a wider international or global sense as energy security interdependencies deepen; and fourth, East Asia's growing reliance on sourcing energy fuels from outside the region will make it more dependent on stable international energy markets—these markets are becoming increasingly internationalized and globalized, which will broaden the future options of East Asian states developing new international energy partnerships. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

One of the most striking features of the economic development that has occurred in the East Asian region has been the influential role of the state in directing its course. Vietnam is also following this well-worn path of state-led developmentalism. The principal contribution of this paper is two-fold. First, we place the Vietnamese experience in comparative historical and conceptual perspective. It is suggested that the structure of the Vietnamese state itself and the distinctive nature of the policies it has undertaken are reflections of the country's traumatic recent history and the fact that its leadership is notionally “communist.” Our second contribution is to detail some of the more important aspects of this process. We provide two case studies which focus on the role of state-owned enterprises and decentralisation initiatives which demonstrate that, despite the frequently ad hoc and contingent nature of the developmental project and an absence of the sort of state capacity that distinguished the likes of Japan in its heyday, the Vietnamese government is overseeing economic development in creative and surprisingly effective ways. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper aims to explain public support for democracy in six East Asian societies using the 2006 AsiaBarometer data. The project investigates whether East Asians' support for democracy is primarily based on perceived political performance, such as satisfaction with human rights, or perceived economic performance. The work also examines whether East Asians' support for democracy is constrained by traditional values or the postmodern value of post-materialism. The analysis shows that for three democracies, satisfaction with human rights, i.e. perceived political performance and an intrinsic value embodied in democracy, counts more in shaping public support for democracy than perceived economic performance. Because support based on perceived economic performance is more volatile than support based on firm commitment to human rights, this finding sheds positive light on the prospects for democratic stability for the three East Asian democracies. For three East Asian autocratic societies, democratic support is based more on perceived economic rather than political performance, casting a pall on the future prospects for democratization of them. That said, these dim prospects are balanced by the finding of very weak and negative effects of some traditional Asian values on democratic support. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Based on survey data collected in Hong Kong and other economies of East Asia, this paper examines youth's access to and use of the Internet and potential consequences of Internet use on youth in the region. The paper compares Internet use by Hong Kong youth with their peers in neighboring economies to help highlight the unique features as well as common practices of Hong Kong youth. The findings, though by no means representative of Asia, provide a set of consistent and reliable benchmarks against which other parts of Asia and beyond could be compared in the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It has been generally acknowledged that the development of East Asian social policy is driven by the imperatives of economic growth and political legitimization of authoritarian regimes. Drawing on the political economy perspective, this article seeks to account for the development of social security in Macao during the period 1998-2008. It has been found that the making of the social security policy over this period was marked by three regulatory roles of social policy with respect to promotion of economic development and restoration of the government's legitimacy: legitimization, reproduction and disciplinization. These regulatory roles were determined by the interplay of contingent political and economic forces at different historical moments. The paper provides empirical support for the political-economic account of East Asian social policy and, in turn, adds to the understanding of the nature of social policy in the region. [image omitted] [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: For shipping activities, not least container shipping, bunker fuel is a considerable expense. In the last 5 years, bunker prices have risen considerably. An increasing bunker price in container shipping, especially in the short term, is only partially compensated through surcharges and will therefore affect earnings negatively. This paper deals with the impact of increasing bunker costs on the design of liner services on the Europe–Far East trade. The paper assesses how shipping lines have adapted their liner service schedules (in terms of commercial speed, number of vessels deployed per loop, etc.) to deal with increased bunker costs. The paper also includes a cost model to simulate the impact of bunker cost changes on the operational costs of liner services. The cost model demonstrates for a typical North Europe–East Asia loop that the current bunker prices have a significant impact on the costs per TEU even when using large post-panamax vessels. The model also shows shipping lines are reacting quite late to higher bunker costs. The reasons that explain the late adaptation of liner services relate to inertia, transit time concerns, increasing costs associated with fixing schedule integrity problems and fleet management issues. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

In this paper I analyze the nexus between economic crises, market oriented reforms, and democratization in Indonesia and Korea since the 1997/98 Asian financial crisis. I provide some support for the hypothesis that democracies are better able to survive economic crises than authoritarian regimes. In both countries democratization facilitated a crisis resolution strategy based on market oriented reforms. However, I assert that in the long run the social consequences of market-oriented reforms tend to undermine democratization partly because both are so closely linked and the majority of the population sees them as one. This process does not necessarily destroy democracies but it leaves them more vulnerable to possible external shocks in the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the role of FDI from the United States in the economic performance of East Asian NICs for 1966-2000. To this end, we draw our argument of the role of FDI from the modernization-dependency debate. Then, we test the economic effects of U.S. direct investment on economic growth in East Asian NICs using a neoclassical production function model that captures the economic impacts of both foreign and domestic investment on economic growth. Our empirical results show that U.S. direct investment has a positive and significant effect on economic growth in East Asian NICs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the recent evolution of regional integration in East Asia, and discusses the prospects and tasks of further integration. After an overview of the globalization and regional integration trend in EU, NAFTA and East Asia during the past half-century, we introduce the basic framework of spatial economics, often called the new economic geography. In terms of globalization and regional integration, it is important to examine the general effects of decreasing transport costs (broadly defined) on spatial distribution of economic activities. Given this theoretical framework, we examine the changing economic interdependency within East Asia, as well as that between East Asia and the rest of the world over the last three decades. Next, we focus on regional diversity and disparity in East Asia. Finally, we compare the regional integration in EU with that of East Asia, and examine the tasks and prospects of further promotion of East Asian integration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over the past few decades there have been extensive empirical and theoretical studies of the determination of intra-industry trade (IIT), but mostly for the industrialized countries. This paper aims to assess the trends and pattern of intra-industry trade and structural adjustment in China's manufacturing sector associated with its trade liberalization using data spanning from 1990 to 2000. In particular, we distinguish intra-industry trade as either horizontally or vertically differentiated, and examine how the various country-specific factors affect the intensity of China's horizontally and vertically differentiated intra-industry trade with its major trading partners, and how trade liberalization changes the pattern of China's IIT and integration with the East Asian region. These issues have important policy implications for product differentiation strategy and labour adjustment. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Revista de Economía Institucional is the property of Universidad Externado de Colombia and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Trade liberalization and regional economic integration have recently accelerated in East Asia, where several free trade areas have been established or are under negotiation. Vietnam, after acquiring Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) membership in 1995, has signed a bilateral trade package with the United States and participated in the China-ASEAN free trade area. This paper attempts to analyze the impact on Vietnam of ongoing regional economic integration, focusing on growth, poverty reduction and income distribution. For this purpose, we have constructed a globally linked Computable General Equilibrium (CGE) model and made use of Global Trade Analysis Project (GTAP) database version 6.0 and Vietnam's living standards surveys. The simulation analysis shows that the regional economic integration generally has a positive impact. It both enhances welfare and improves income-distribution for Vietnam. Household income and consumption increase, and poor and rural household groups benefit more than urban high income groups. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the relationship between exchange rate volatility and exports of the five selected East Asian economies. A measure of the quantitative proxy of the exchange rate risk is constructed, focusing on the role of moving-average in smoothing the persistence of the risk measure. Vector autoregressive (VAR) model, error correction modelling (ECM), and variance decomposition (VD) are applied to characterize the joint dynamics of variables in both the short and long run. The Johansen results indicate a stable long-run relation between exports and exchange rate. Results show that a great fluctuation of exchange rate volatility has significantly impacted the volume of exports for the economies concerned. To this end, the forecast error VD shows that the innovations of exchange rate volatility have minor impact on export patterns in the study. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite claims that accountability enables 'good governance' proper, its specific origins, character and limitations are not yet fully clear. In order to explicate the nature of accountability better this paper will, therefore, formulate and apply its own comparative framework to the case of the East Asian economic miracle, crisis and recovery in particular. In so doing it finds that, even when accountability emerged as a mid-crisis issue that was dramatically reconfigured for any due recovery later, it was not itself then sufficiently explicated for all the implications and consequences to be realized fully. Once it is explicated more fully, however, the further implications and consequences of changing accountability for economic governance question precisely what is to be expected from accountability per se. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper attempts to combine the traditional learning model with the recent theory of economic growth using Maddison's long-run real GDP per capita data of the three fastest growing countries in East Asia: Korea, Taiwan, and Japan. The authors first explain games of catching-up among nations, and then explain the learning coefficients of Taiwan and Korea with Japan and the United States through periods before and after World War II. The model of leaning leads to the logistic model of economic growth of convergence between two countries. Using time-series data, the coefficients of a logistic model are estimated to confirm that the real GDP per capita of Taiwan and Korea are converging to that of Japan and the United States, respectively. Similarly, Japan's GDP per capita converges to that of the United States. The time required for finite convergence for these countries is also estimated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

After the large exchange rate depreciations following the 1997 East Asian crisis, export volumes from East Asian countries responded with a notable lag. Two main explanations for this lag have been proposed: that contraction in domestic credit affected supply of exports and that "competitive depreciation" by other countries neutralized the effects on demand for exports. This paper considers the plausibility of these two mechanisms using a new monthly database of exports of selected industries. The results indicate that "competitive depreciation" played an important role in the propagation of the East Asian crisis through the trade channel, even at a monthly frequency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduces a series of articles that discussed the economic dynamism of small and medium enterprises in East Asia.

In the wake of the crisis that developed in East Asia during 1997, perceptions of the region have been transformed. Critics claim that East Asian political practices and economic structures must be reformed if the region is to prosper in an era of globalization. In short, the region must adopt a different sort of public policy, one associated with an influential agenda of “good governance.” This paper critically assesses this discourse and the predominately “Western” assumptions that underpin it. It is argued that, not only is this reformist agenda likely to be resisted by powerful vested interests, but the institutional infrastructure to support such a style of governance is inadequately developed in East Asia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Taiwan's financial institutions, like their counterparts in other East Asian countries in recent years, have been bogged down by bad loans, deteriorating asset quality, and mismanagement. Government efforts to reform the financial system are at best piecemeal. This paper analyzes the political, social, and economic context of Taiwan's local financial institutions, a body whose problems are symptomatic of the general banking sector in Taiwan. The paper finds that Taiwan's local financial institutions are deeply embedded in the Kuomintang (KMT)-centered political economy, and are thus not easily subject to large-scale reforms. The ascension to power by the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) since the 2000 presidential elections should pave the way for more serious reforms. Difficulties still abound, however. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Unlike earlier studies, this paper argues that the relevant determinants of East Asian integration ought to be gravity (proximity and size of the regional economics). Using a gravity model of 1975-95 merchandise trade flows, strong evidence was found by East Asian economies integrating and interacting like never before. Interestingly, the most recent evidence also suggests that Japan is in danger of losing its place at the centre of this potentially self-sustaining economic system. In other words, the East Asian situation is still unfolding as the regional economies experience a dynamic process of changing comparative advantage which is enhancing their competitiveness against one another, as well as against other developed economies, including Japan. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite claims that regional institutions and economic interdependence are playing increasingly important roles in maintaining peace in East Asia, the regional security landscape is still molded to a large extent by balance-of-power thinking and practice, in which relative military power is a central consideration. This paper assesses: (1) the changing distribution of military power in East Asia in terms of the evolving roles of extraregional players (the United States, Russia, and West European states) us well as the ginning military capabilities of the regional stales themselves; and (2) the strategic implications of this changing military balance for the region, the United Slates, and Europe. This paper argues that the key factor preventing the degeneration of rivalry between East Asian states into more naked military competition is and will remain the regional military commitment of the United States, which helps to constrain not only China's presumed hegemonic ambitions but also large-scale Japanese rearmament. Recent U.S. regional security policy has focused on reinforcing the stability of the regional balance, most importantly hi bolstering key alliance relationships in the region (particularly with Japan and Australia). However, the balance envisaged in Washington does not rest solely on calculations of relative power: the United Stales has simultaneously attempted to engage China and has supported regional confidence-building dialogues. The present balance, under-pinned by the U.S. regional security role, serves the interests of European slates well. While responsibility for reinforcing the stability of this balance must rest primarily with the United States, Japan, and other regional states, West European governments can contribute to East Asia's "soft security." Moreover, by becoming more self-reliant in their own defence and perhaps by contributing forces in support of the U.S. regional role, they can also contribute to the region's "hard security" as well. West European governments, though, might find such "out-of-area" commitments hard to justify to domestic political constituencies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Private sector participation in urban rail transit has proliferated in the past two decades. The large metropolises of East Asia have had decades of experience with private sector participation in the provision of heavy metro services. The design of these public–private partnerships (PPP) are varied. The diverse experiences of Tokyo, Hong Kong, Singapore and Beijing contain valuable lessons for other cities. Using a case study approach, this paper discusses three features of urban rail transit developments in the context of East Asian cities, viz ., farebox recovery, land value capture mechanisms, and vertical structure of the industry. Super vertical integration between rail transit and real estate development as land value capture strategy to finance urban rail transit has proven to be successful in Japanese cities and Hong Kong. Singapore’s experience illustrates that vertically unbundled PPPs could cut off avenues for cross-subsidisation, reduce information flows as well as economies of scale and scope, introduce principal agent problems, and result in underinvestment in capital stock and maintenance. We conclude that (i) a combination of high farebox recovery ratios and successful land value capture contributed significantly to the development of urban rail transit in East Asia cities; (ii) given the complexities and high costs of heavy metros, the optimal structure is a vertically integrated public-owned and driven system, with the public sector entering into selective partnerships with the private sector where risk sharing is clearly defined and allocated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The recent resurgence of intellectual interest in industrialization has been stimulated by the emergence of a wealth of empirical evidence which constitutes a reinterpretation of the East Asian experience, and the rise in mainstream academia of the "new" theories of trade and growth. Both of these two bodies of writings point to the necessity of placing technological development at the center of industrialization. There is however considerable doubt among economists over this thematic shift away from the hitherto dominant emphasis on incentive. There are also conceptual ambiguities over the nature of technological development that need to be clarified. This paper aims to reaffirm the centrality of technological development, and to argue that the imperative of technological development normally outstrips the capacity of the regulation of the market. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]