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After World War II, international capital flowed into slow-growing Latin America rather than fast-growing Asia. This is surprising as, everything else equal, fast growth should imply high capital returns. This paper develops a capital flow accounting framework to quantify the role of different factor market distortions in producing these patterns. Surprisingly, we find that distortions in labor markets, rather than domestic or international capital markets, account for the bulk of these flows. Labor market distortions that indirectly depress investment incentives by lowering equilibrium labor supply explain two-thirds of observed flows, while improvement in these distortions over time accounts for much of Asia's rapid growth. (JEL E22, E24, E32, F21, F32, O16, O47) [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents information on the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) economies in the 1990s, focusing on the importance of Singapore's regional role. During the 1970s and 1980s, the Asian newly industrializing economies (NIEs) of Taiwan, Singapore, South Korea and Hong Kong had experienced tremendous growth, which began to decline by the late 1980s due to strengthening currencies and rising labor costs. However, expansion among the four largest ASEAN economies (Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines and Thailand) gained momentum during this period. The author notes that, since 1989, the average growth rate of the ASEAN's top four countries has surpassed that of the Asian NIEs. The author discusses some of the chief factors that have caused the dynamic ASEAN economic growth.

While as a major sector of the world economy, tourism's contribution to economic growth is widely accepted, the situation is not clear when it comes to sustainable development. This study empirically investigates whether there is a relationship between sustainable development and tourism in Asia-Pacific countries with rapidly growing economies and a promising tourism sector. In the panel data analysis where data from the period 2000-2015 was used, adjusted net savings set as sustainable development indicators, as well as tourist arrivals and tourism revenues representing the tourism sector were used. The empirical estimates across the panel indicate that tourist arrivals in Asia-Pacific countries have a negative impact on sustainable development accompanied by a positive impact on tourism revenues. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article attempts to shed light on the ways migrant domestic workers negotiate with their employers and their states, both in their host countries and countries of origin, regarding their rights as workers, and the dynamic sociopolitical challenges that emerge from their intersectionalities of being women, migrants and domestic workers. Traversing through narratives and accounts of several transnational networks, the article seeks to understand how the domestic workers attempt to engage in political mobilisation and form networks that cut across territorial boundaries. In this article I delineate the nuances of the emergent forms of the politics that emanate from the intersectionalities of being women, migrants and domestic workers, and the implications these have for the larger political projects of citizenship and nationalism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article empirically examines economic and financial linkages for emerging Asian economies for the period 2000 to 2014. Taking a multivariate approach to measuring integration, we examine a number of measures of economic interconnections to investigate whether (and which) individual dimensions of these connections might drive economic integration. We also provide an empirical assessment of whether and how real and financial linkages drive income growth convergence. Our article finds two important results: First, interconnections between the ASEAN-5 countries are driven primarily by financial linkages while those for the larger countries in the region are driven by real linkages. Second, greater interconnections though prices tend to lead to greater income growth convergence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The majority of Asian countries, in particular, those located in East Asia, such as China, are characterized by high GDP shares of consumption. While over the past two decades there has been a remarkable growth in consumption, and to a lesser extent of consumption per capita, the GDP share of the consumption has declined by a considerable amount in Asia. The article presents projections of the GDP consumption share. The projections are based on time series models and an econometric model that relates the GDP share of consumption to GDP growth. Instrumental variables estimates show that the GDP share of consumption is significantly negatively related to growth: A decrease in PPP GDP per capita growth of 1 percentage point increases the GDP share of consumption by around 2 percentage points. Slower growth in Asia would thus significantly contribute to a higher GDP share of consumption in that region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We examine the determinants of financial sector development in Asia and the Pacific from 1995 to 2011. In terms of economic growth, over the last twenty years the region has outperformed other parts of the world and has also experienced major developments in its traditionally bank-dominated financial system since the 1997 Asian financial crisis. We apply the dynamic generalized method of moments to a panel data set of twenty-six economies in the region. The estimations were done for the whole panel as well as for subpanels of developed and developing economies. We find that better governance and institutional quality foster financial sector development in developing economies while economic growth and trade openness are key determinants of financial depth in developed economies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A cross-country comparative analysis of corporate governance structures and financial performance of publicly listed companies in Singapore and Vietnam, covering a four-year period from 2008 to 2011, is undertaken in this study. More specifically, the similarities and differences in the corporate governance structures and financial performance of the companies are compared and interpreted in the institutional context of each market. On an average basis, we find that the size, composition and diversity of the boards in these two markets are statistically significantly different. In contrast, there is no statistical evidence to reject the similarities in ownership structure, board leadership structure, and financial performance between the firms of the two markets. In addition, our comparative analysis on the corporate governance structures-financial performance nexus also reveals that the performance effects of corporate governance structures vary significantly between the two markets, thus supporting the view that the performance effects of corporate governance structures are country-specific. Our findings suggest that country-level characteristics should be captured when modelling the corporate governance-firm performance relationship in cross-country comparative corporate governance research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates why imports tend to fall more than exports in 11 Asian economies, especially during crises, via a standard import specification augmented with differential and time-varying impacts of each component of aggregate demand. The result shows the import intensity of exports is the highest among all variables. Alone, however, it does not contribute to a larger fall in imports. The larger decline in imports is evident if other components of aggregate demand also fall, particularly investment and consumption. A weakened credit condition will also exacerbate the fall in imports. In crisis periods more nuanced results are evident. Fiscal contractions seemed to have worsened the fall in imports during the 1997/1998 Asian financial crisis, exacerbated further by the fall in exports. Business and consumer sentiment seem to have a lagged positive impact during the global financial crisis. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The article presents a speech by Bilahari Kausikan, Ambassador at Large of the Republic of Singapore, delivered at the Second Asia Future Conference organized by the Sekiguchi Global Research Association/Atsumi International Foundation and Udayana University held in Bali, Indonesia from August 22-24, 2014. Topics of the speech included the future of Asia, the contribution of China in global restructuring, and the profound transition of power and ideas around the world.

This paper presents the findings of a review of research papers that were published in theJournal of Travel & Tourism Marketingfrom January 2011 to December 2013. Content analysis was used to analyze 159 research papers. The results revealed that, out of the eight research areas identified, consumer behavior, brand management, and e-marketing are the three most popular research topics among studies that collected data from Asian and non-Asian countries/regions. One notable exception is that research related to demand models and pricing seems to be dominated by research in Asian countries/regions. The study concludes with a general discussion of the implications, trends in tourism marketing research, and study limitations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]