Advanced Research on Asian Economy and Economies of Other Continents – serie

In an open economy, basic development strategies include promoting foreign exports, attracting foreign direct investment, and stimulating economic growth. Using time-series and panel data analyses, the first part of this book studies the causality and significance of these three strategies, individually or collectively, empirically and theoretically, during the catch-up growth and development phases of emerging East and Southeast Asian economies.While it is well-known that trade and investment are major catalysts for economic development and growth, the interaction and importance of all three strategies have seldom been studied together statistically and systematically. This well-researched scholarly book collects closely-related papers by Frank Hsiao and Mei-Chu Wang Hsiao and studies the causal relations and the degree of importance among these three strategies for policymakers, scholars and students of development studies and international economics.Another development strategy in open economies is reducing friction and volatility through government-to-government policy coordination. The second part of this book introduces the role of the United States in the Asia-Pacific region, and the possibility of monetary policy coordination between large countries and small countries in the Asia-Pacific region.

This volume is the outgrowth of a conference held at Peking University in May 2002, jointly sponsored by the American Committee on Asian Economic Studies, the Peking University School of Economics, and the China Reform Forum. The contributors include leading scholars from Asia as well as specialists on Asia from the US, Europe, and Australia. The book delves into issues of trade and investment, exchange rates and macroeconomic policy, and preferential trade agreements and other forms of economic cooperation. The overall message is one of regional dynamism animated by concerted efforts to build a favorable institutional environment. China is a great motivating force in this dynamism and a key player in the development of regional agreements.

For some twenty-five years after 1949, China did not exist and the country was only rediscovered in the 1970s. As China looks set to soar in the new millennium, there is an urgency to understand the world's most populous economy with a billion plus people. This book aims to shed light on the country's rapid industrialization and internationalization by looking at questions such as: Can China sustain its accelerated rate of growth? Can labor supply be sustained at a relatively low wage rate? Can inflow of foreign direct investment be sustained at a high rate, given the consequent exposure to inflation? Will China's domestic market absorb its own output as the limit on the ability to export manufactures to overseas markets is reached? Is China's currency undervalued? Given China's foreign exchange reserves, should the country have a freely convertible currency?

Regional economic integration has become a key force in international commercial policy in the 2000s. Europe has traditionally embraced regionalism; the United States became actively involved in preferential trading arrangements only in the 1980s. While Asia has been late in accepting formal regional economic integration accords, all Asian countries are now in the process of creating various free-trade areas and other forms of economic integration programs, and some are already in place. This volume analyzes the regionalism trend from an Asian perspective. It considers the lessons from, and the economic implications of, various economic integration programs in the OECD (mostly the EU but also NAFTA), as well as the proposals for closer economic integration in the region itself. Chapters deal with both real and financial integration issues.

This book is a compendium of papers on various new movements that emerged after the Asian financial crisis, which lead to Asia becoming the enhanced growth center of the world.Beginning with the analysis of the Asian crisis and the subsequent capital flight, the book goes on to study the impact of these events on the Hong Kong economy, the role of the government in Indonesia and financial restructuring in Thailand. The book then explores the new movement of regional cooperation, such as Free Trade Agreement, and financial cooperation and integration. On the real side of the economy, the book delves into issues such as cooperation between Japan and China, development of the Greater Mekong sub-region, growth of China, fiscal coordination in Korea, technological network in East Asia, and growth and inequality in Vietnam.

Given the rapid emergence of regional economic arrangements in Asia, especially in Southeast Asia, it is useful to understand clearly what regionalism implies for the region, as well as to take stock as to the far-reaching and complicated effects of formal economic cooperation and integration. This book allows the reader to better understand the relevant international policies of the Southeast Asian economies, and to appreciate the potential lessons for other developing regions. It also focuses on the regionalism trend with an explicit application to ASEAN, as well as the implications of regionalism in the developed countries.The goal of this book is to survey the economics and political economy of regionalism in the ASEAN context from a variety of perspectives and using various techniques, from standard economic analysis of preferential trading arrangements to the political economy analysis of institutions. Its approach is comprehensive in that it includes ASEAN economic integration in the areas of trade, foreign direct investment, and finance. Presentation of the material is designed to be accessible to non-technical audiences without sacrificing the rigor expected by economists and other experts.

The future growth and development of Asia — the most dynamic economic region in the world today — will have important implications for the rest of the global economy. This book offers a futuristic perspective of a wide array of developmental challenges and opportunities facing Asian economies over the next two decades. The future is approached from several different developmental paradigms including technological change and innovation, regional cooperation within Asia and between Asia and the West, poverty reduction, ethics and corruption, and environmental challenges. Future prospects for the two giant economies of China and India are also explored. By offering a comprehensive look at the medium-term future of Asia from such a wide range of different viewpoints, this fascinating book will interest economists, social scientists, politicians, international investment managers and the general public alike.

As Singapore progresses from a newly-independent nation to a more mature economy, the economic challenges it faces have evolved.In the 50 years following Singapore's independence, the country tackled economic challenges relating to a fledgling nation, that included launching onto a path of economic take-off, and managing workers' wage aspirations without rising unemployment. It met those challenges, successfully transiting from relative poverty in the 1960s to relative prosperity today.As the country enters the next phase of its economic development, having now surpassed the US standard of living as measured by real GDP per capita, it faces another set of challenges: How to transit from catch-up growth arising from technological diffusion from frontier economies, to generating indigenous innovation? How to face the problem of a shrinking local workforce? How to manage a shift in job preferences with rising wealth and educational attainments?This volume provides a theory of Singapore's economic development. With a coherent theory capable of explaining how Singapore got to where it is, the book analyses how the future might look like for the Singapore economy. With its forward-looking analysis, this book is valuable to students as it weaves macroeconomic data together with growth theory and highlights the interaction of economic forces with social influences and political institutions. It also serves as a good reference for other emerging economies that, like Singapore, want to avoid the middle-income trap, and for researchers interested in analysing the economic possibilities for current and future Singaporeans.

At the end of the 1980s, a tri-polar world comprising the US, EU and Japan emerged. However, the economic turbulence of the early 21st century has destabilized this order, and the rise of other Asian powers has implications for the formation of a new economic configuration.This book discusses the probability of the different tentative global economic power balances to emerge, as well as the different contestants: the EU, China and Japan, among others.Organized into three sections, the first part addresses general and trend-wise developments with relevance to the outcome of the re-polarization process. Subsequently, three chapters focus on developments in China, India and Japan. Finally, special issues such as climate policies, corporate governance, social reforms and cross-border economic alliances are considered in greater detail, in relation to their implications for the outcome of the re-polarization process.

Organizations such as ASEAN and EU were formed to promote economic growth, social progress and cultural development among their members. This book provides a comprehensive overview of the transformation which the newest members of ASEAN (Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar and Laos) and the newest members of EU (ten new Members from Baltic, Central and Eastern Balkan regions) have experienced during the last two decades (1990-2010). It throws light on the different social, economic and political causes which support these historical changes.Emerging markets such as the Mekong region and Central Europe where new forms of capitalism are flourishing have been captured in this book. Their policies in privatization, regionalization, industrial growth that support a new and deregulated form of capitalism have been mentioned in detail. The author stresses upon the capacity and strengths of these two hitherto “weak states” to face worldwide and regional challenges.