Routledge Studies in the Growth Economies of Asia – serie

This book examines the diffusion of economic ideas in East Asia, assessing the impact of external ideas on internal theory and practice. It considers economists from Adam Smith onwards, including Marx, Keynes, Hayek and contemporary economists, and covers the subject both historically and also includes present day and likely future developments. The book covers all the major countries of East Asia, and pays particular attention to specific economists who have had a strong impact in specific countries, and to important developments in economic theory in East Asia, exploring how far these have been driven by Western economic ideas.This book will be welcomed by students and scholars of East Asia and South-east Asia, as well as those interested in economics, economic history and management.

The last available census estimated around 10 per cent of total urban working women in India are concentrated in the low paid domestic services such as cleaning, cooking, and taking care of the children and the elderly. This is found to be much higher in certain parts of India, emerging as the single most important avenue for urban females, surpassing males in the service since the 1980s.By applying an imaginative and refreshing mix of disciplinary approaches ranging from economic models of the household, empirical analysis and literary conventions, this book analyses the changing labour economy in post-partition West Bengal. It explains how and why women and girl children have replaced this traditionally male bias in the gender segregated domestic service industry since the late 1940s, and addresses the question of whether this increase in vulnerable individuals working in domestic service, the growth of the urban professional middle class in the post liberalization period, and the increasing incidences of reported abuses of domestics, in urban middleclass homes in the recent years, are related. Covering five decades of the history of gender and labour in India, this book will be of interest to scholars working in the fields of gender and labour relations, development studies, economics, history, and women and gender studies.

China’s emergence as the world’s second largest economy has been driven by more than four decades of explosive growth. To support this expansion, China has required massive expansion in its steel production capacity, which is highly correlated to its demand for iron ore imports. The scale and pace of China’s iron ore demand shock has pushed the global iron ore market into a historical adjustment. Using economic frameworks, this book brings to bare new data and field observations throughout Asia and Africa to investigate how the rapid growth in China’s iron ore demand has affected the organisation and structure of the global iron ore market. The research provides several important contributions to the extant literature including analysis of whether the Big Three Asian market iron ore exporters coordinated to sustain the profits arising from the price boom; estimating the financial impact of the Chinese state’s intervention in iron price negotiations; and addressing the concerns arising from the Chinese state’s provision of cheap financial support for its companies’ iron ore procurement.Offering unique insights into China’s economic rise and the structure of the iron ore market, this book will be relevant to students and scholars of resource economics, and the Australian and Chinese economies.

This is a compelling analysis of the corporate economies of China and India, which are having a huge impact not just on the international economy, but also in the geopolitical and international strategy sphere as a result of an accelerated globalisation by these two countries, which is unleashing powerful economic challenges to corporate structures, economic institutions and law worldwide. The big question is how after centuries of underdevelopment China and now India are emerging powerfully and pulling ahead of Western European economies. Analysing the role of the state and the adroit use of law, and their impact on the corporate evolution of both China and India, provides greater clarity and insight into why China has evolved as a manufacturing nation utilizing cheap abundant labour while India has not exploited such advantages but instead focused on IT and higher value industries, even abroad as Tata has demonstrated in the motor industry in Europe. Again while Chinese corporations have expanded abroad as an arm of the state into Asia, Middle East, Africa, Europe, Latin America and parts of the southern states of the USA, India has pushed principally into Europe through the efforts of powerful minority capitalists of Parsi and Gujerati background, overcoming technological gaps and differences through acquisitions and absorptions of existing corporations in particular industries, especially in steel, automobiles and textiles. In China, state owned corporations have been dominant. In India, though state owned enterprises have been powerful since 1951, it has been private capitalists with an established stronghold since the colonial period and even under the Socialist period from 1951-1991 who have been the more productive main actors both in India and abroad.

Recent developments in the world economy, including deindustrialisation and the digital revolution, have led to an increasingly individualistic relationship between workers and employers, which in turn has weakened labour movements and worker representation. However, this process is not universal, including in some countries of Asia, where trade unions are closely aligned with the interests of the dominant political party and the state. This book considers the many challenges facing trade unions and worker representation in a wide range of Asian countries. For each country, full background is given on how trade unions and other forms of worker representation have arisen. Key questions then considered include the challenges facing trade unions and worker representation in each country, the extent to which these are a result of global or local developments and the actions being taken by trade unions and worker representative bodies to cope with the challenges.This book is dedicated to the memory of Professor Keith Thurley, London School of Economics.

South Korea known as the hermit kingdom was wrenched from its isolation in the mid-seventies with the forced industialisation of its economy by Park Chung-hee during his dictatorial regime. This led South Korea to becoming the most rapidly industialised country in the world with world class technology and a population who are largely digitally proficient. The course is charted from the rule of Park Chung-hee to his democratically elected daughter President Park Geun-hye who is now on trial for corruption. The legacy of the Park to Park era is not only the most fruitful in Korean history but the most tumultuous, most recently because of the accelerated nuclear ambitions of North Korea. The analysis is through the framework of investment, innovation and intellectual property rights and the double edged sword of cult and rapid action, so central to Korean culture.

This book explores the importance of entrepreneurs in driving economic growth as the world economy grows and becomes more integrated and more challenging. It examines the situation in both advanced and developing countries and shows how the entrepreneurial orientation of the founders of small and medium sized enterprises has resulted in phenomenal growth, often fuelled by innovation and new technologies. It contrasts the experiences of Chinese family business in China and among the overseas Chinese with the experiences of family businesses in the United States and Europe. One important conclusion is that there has been a noticeable fall in entrepreneurial proclivity in the advanced economies, in contrast to the position in emerging economies.

This book focuses on Shenzhen, one of China’s most globalized metropolises, a leading centre of high-tech industries and, as a melting pot of migrants from all over China, a place of vibrant cultural creativity. While in the early stages of Shenzhen’s development this vibrant cultural creativity was associated with the resilience of traditional social structures in Shenzhen’s migrant ‘urban villages’, today these structures undergird dynamic entrepreneurship and urban self-organization throughout Shenzhen, and have gradually merged with the formal structures of urban governance and politics. This book examines these developments, showing how important traditional social structures and traditional Chinese culture have been for China’s economic modernization. The book goes on to draw out the implications of this for the future of Chinese culture and Chinese economic engagement in a globalized world.

Policy ownership of development agenda emerged as an important aspect in international development cooperation during the 1990s in the wake of evident failures of reform initiatives in developing countries steered by donor agencies, particularly the international financial institutions (IFIs), the World Bank (WB) and the International Monetary Fund (IMF).The principal focus of this book is to examine Bangladesh’s policy ownership in its PRSP by broadly analyzing the dynamics in the formulation process and examining the principal actors’ contribution to the formulation process. This book also deals with several other dimensions of foreign aid and its changing features including the shifts in WB-IMF’s approach to development cooperation. This book argues that the WB-IMF strongly influence Bangladesh’s development strategies and agendas and in general the WB-IMF have not changed much in their aid relationship despite clear limitations of their previous reform models. Building on Bangladesh’s current level of development the book advocates that Bangladesh needs to adopt a new model for development agenda setting. Illustrating the influences of donor communities on the creation of development strategies in developing countries, this book presents a macro dynamics of the political economy of international development cooperation. It will be of interest to academics and professionals working on political economy, governance, public policy and development cooperation as well as South Asian Studies.

Microcredit took the development world by storm as a tool for poverty alleviation in the 1980s. After being hailed as a panacea, a few decades on it started being forcefully criticised based on its practice. This book explores Akhuwat (literally brotherhood), a rapidly growing Pakistani NGO formed in 2001, which addresses the shortcomings of conventional microfinance. Its vision is of a society built on empathy and social solidarity and its mission is that of creating self-sufficiency among the entrepreneurial poor. This book examines whether Akhuwat fulfils its promises of not pushing loans or encouraging clients to get on a debt treadmill and helping them to avoid high debt burdens by charging no interest and easing repayment terms. Conventional microcredit organizations are criticised for losing sight of the original mission of poverty alleviation by engaging in empire building and Akhuwat’s goal is to avoid this by embracing an alternative strategy of scaling up. Finally, this book also analyses Akhuwat’s approach as being gender sensitive and embracing all religions, castes and ethnicities. Based on fieldwork designed to assess if Akhuwat is the microcredit alternative it claims to be, this book will be of interest to scholars of poverty and development studies in general and microcredit in particular.

The desire to steal the intellectual property (IP) of others, be they creative individuals or company teams working in patent pools to create new innovations, remains the same. Political methods have become more sophisticated in terms of devaluing the output of creative humans by creating open- source access, which can be taken freely by all and sundry. What has changed is the new cyber- based technology that allows increased theft of IP. Likewise, warfare for geo- political imperatives is not new but sophisticated cyber- based methods that can actually carry out infrastructural damage through cyberspace are new and are accordingly termed cyberwarfare. How cyber strategies are used in IP theft and cyberwarfare in relation to new complex digital technology such as the Internet of Things (IoT) is explored in relation to particular essential sectors in the economy: marine, smart energy power grids and insurance. Country- specifi c studies based on either being the recipient or perpetrator (or both) of cyberattacks provide analysis in relation to Japan, China and North Korea, Russia, Europe (the UK in particular), Iran and the USA.

The transformation of China’s economy from a centrally planned to a market-oriented system has had a profound impact on management systems and practices at the firm level, particularly changes to the organization of work. One of the consequences of this is increasing social disparity reflected through inequality of employees’ income and employment conditions. This book, based on extensive original research including interviews and questionnaire surveys in different regions of China, explores the exact nature of these changes and their effects. It examines state-owned enterprises, foreign-owned enterprises and domestic private enterprises, discusses the extent to which employees are satisfied with their employment conditions and whether they think their employment conditions are fair and outlines how managers and employees in China expect conditions to change in future.

This book analyses India’s trade policy evolution in the last two decades in the broad context of trends and patterns in global trade and in particular, with reference to the emergence of global value chains (GVCs).Through an in-depth analysis of its trade policy evolution in the 2000s, the author explains India’s limited share of global merchandise trade, especially manufacturing trade and relatively low GVC integration. The book discusses India’s trade policy, pattern and global trade participation not just in the comparative context of China as is true of most analyses relating to the Indian economy, economic reforms and trade liberalization in India but also in the context of regional economies like Vietnam, Thailand, Malaysia, Bangladesh and other emerging market economies (EMEs) that have successfully integrated with GVCs/ RVCs in the period under reference. Progress and nature of India’s value chain participation relative to other economies has been evaluated in this context. The book further examines policy developments with respect to traditional trade measures like tariffs and export schemes, trade and GVC related policies in special economic zones (SEZs) as well as GVC-facilitating policy instruments such as regional/ free trading agreements (RTAs/FTAs) and investment treaties. Three sectoral case studies - automobiles, textiles and apparel and electronics - are presented to examine India’s participation in these dynamic GVC intensive sectors. An important study of one of the fastest growing economies in the world for almost two decades, this book will be of substantial interest to academics and policymakers in the fields of Economics, International Economics, Foreign Policy, Economic Relations, Economic Diplomacy, Indian- Southeast/East Asian Economics.

This book analyses India’s trade policy evolution in the last two decades in the broad context of trends and patterns in global trade and in particular, with reference to the emergence of global value chains (GVCs).Through an in-depth analysis of its trade policy evolution in the 2000s, the author explains India’s limited share of global merchandise trade, especially manufacturing trade and relatively low GVC integration. The book discusses India’s trade policy, pattern and global trade participation not just in the comparative context of China as is true of most analyses relating to the Indian economy, economic reforms and trade liberalization in India but also in the context of regional economies like Vietnam, Thailand, Malaysia, Bangladesh and other emerging market economies (EMEs) that have successfully integrated with GVCs/ RVCs in the period under reference. Progress and nature of India’s value chain participation relative to other economies has been evaluated in this context. The book further examines policy developments with respect to traditional trade measures like tariffs and export schemes, trade and GVC related policies in special economic zones (SEZs) as well as GVC-facilitating policy instruments such as regional/ free trading agreements (RTAs/FTAs) and investment treaties. Three sectoral case studies - automobiles, textiles and apparel and electronics - are presented to examine India’s participation in these dynamic GVC intensive sectors. An important study of one of the fastest growing economies in the world for almost two decades, this book will be of substantial interest to academics and policymakers in the fields of Economics, International Economics, Foreign Policy, Economic Relations, Economic Diplomacy, Indian- Southeast/East Asian Economics.

Recent developments in the world economy, including deindustrialisation and the digital revolution, have led to an increasingly individualistic relationship between workers and employers, which in turn has weakened labour movements and worker representation. However, this process is not universal, including in some countries of Asia, where trade unions are closely aligned with the interests of the dominant political party and the state. This book considers the many challenges facing trade unions and worker representation in a wide range of Asian countries. For each country, full background is given on how trade unions and other forms of worker representation have arisen. Key questions then considered include the challenges facing trade unions and worker representation in each country, the extent to which these are a result of global or local developments and the actions being taken by trade unions and worker representative bodies to cope with the challenges.This book is dedicated to the memory of Professor Keith Thurley, London School of Economics.

China’s New Silk Road initiative constitutes one of the most ambitious projects in recent decades designed to change the pattern of the global economic division of labour as well as the geostrategic balance of power. It has the potential to create a new fabric of industrial value creation that links China and East Asia via Central and South Asia with Europe, and to forge new regional and multilateral institutions that complement or compete with existing regional and global governance systems. First proposed in 2013, the new initiative is only now starting to be rolled-out, with trade relations gradually intensifying, and the first investment projects and infrastructure clusters becoming manifest. However, the full impact of the evolving new regional value chains on global goods flows, investment activity, supra-national institution building, as well as their wider international implications, remains undetermined. This book brings together leading scholars from economics, political science and area studies, who present the latest cutting-edge knowledge and the latest state-of-the-art economic and political analysis on how the new initiative is developing and likely to develop.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is the most rapidly developing technology in the current Digital Age, but it is also the least defined, understood and adequately explained technological advance. This book brings together a group of leading experts who assess different aspects of AI from different disciplinary perspectives. The book argues that robots are not living systems but the creations of humans who must ultimately be accountable for the actions of the robots that they have invented. Robots do not have ownership entitlement. The book uses Intellectual Property Rights cases, evidence from roboticists, cybersecurity experts, Patent Court judges, technology officers, climate change scientists, economists, physicists and those from the legal profession to demonstrate that while AI can have very beneficial uses for many aspects of human economy and society, robots are not living systems autonomous from human decision making. This book will be useful to those in banking and insurance, cybersecurity, lawyers, judges, technology officers, economists, scientist inventors, computer scientists, large and small companies and postgraduate students.

The quality of its business leadership is a key issue for the future development of Asia’s economies. Although Asia’s economies have grown spectacularly in recent decades, they are currently facing increasing challenges. This book explores the current state of business leaders and leadership in Asia. It demonstrates that there is no single model of Asian business leadership, and that Western models often do not fit easily alongside Asian cultural values. It discusses how relatively developed Asian economies – Japan, Korea, Taiwan and Singapore, and former socialist economies – China and Vietnam – all have different types of business leadership challenges at present. The book concludes by assessing how business leadership in Asia is likely to develop in future.

Economic growth in Asia over the past half century has led to significant changes in societies, business organization and the nature of work. This has been accompanied by the rise in some countries of trade unions and also of employers’ associations. This book explores the nature of employers’ associations in the major countries of Asia. It considers how employers’ associations have developed in recent decades, how changes in market structures and the profile of economies have affected employers’ associations, how employers’ associations deal with issues to do with pay and employment conditions, and how they interact with regulation and the state. The book shows how the differing political and institutional contexts of different countries, and different economic conditions, greatly affect the nature of employers’ associations and also the wider context of labour markets and trade unions.

The clothing industry provides employment for 60 million workers worldwide. More than a quarter of these workers are employed in the Asia-Pacific region, where the industry is based on subcontracted production on behalf of international buyers. Rapid movements of manufacturing activity from country to country in search of cost advantages make clothing workers part of a globalizing labour market where they increasingly suffer from job insecurity.This book presents carefully researched case studies which highlight the ways in which labour is informalized, fragmented and made disposable by the globalization of production. Chapters address issues pertaining to rights and citizenship, and new forms of activism and organization in conjunction and coordination with diverse support groups, consumers, and wider global campaigns. Contributors further examine the role of the nation state, government regulatory bodies, as well as independent monitoring systems such as the International Labour Organization. Although there has been considerable effort directed to understanding how firms operate across multiple countries – in studies of the organization of global production networks, and the implications for complexities of scale, (de)territorialization and state development projects – there has been far less focus on how these processes produce precarious labour and reshape worker consciousness.Offering new insights into the understanding and support of workers in the global textile and garment industry, this book will be of interest to academics in a variety of disciplines including Asian Studies, sociology, political economy, development, human rights, labour and gender.

China's spectacular economic growth has made it the focus of international attention. Financial Reform in China argues that Chinese financial reform has failed to keep pace with its continuing economic growth.With increased marketization and internationalization, China's financial and monetary system should play a pivotal role in economic reform and development. However China's banking and financial organizations still operate under a highly regulated environment shaped by the centrally planned economic system, and this slow financial reform has failed to meet the demands of more general economic reform.

In the late 1950s, the Filipino economy could reasonably have been described as more advanced than those of its South Asian neighbours. Ever since then, however, it has consistently lagged behind and only really started to grow strongly in the mid-1990s and even then it failed to achieve the growth rates of the rest of Southeast Asia ten years earlier.This book critically analyses the Filipino economy and attempts to explain the problems that it has faced, as well as the solutions that need to be put into practice.This accessible and comprehensive book will be of great use to students, academics and business professionals with an interest in the economies of Asia.

The Thai Economy examines the origins and consequences of the Thai economy's accelerated growth since the mid-1980s. The authors place a particular emphasis on the historical development and contemporary economic structure that tends to set Thailand apart from other developing countries.

Papua New Guinea is the first book to explore the economic development of this socially complex, rapidly changing nation. Subjects discussed include:* rapid economic growth and political conflict* civil war on the island of Bougainville* population growth and urbanisation* mining: gold, copper and environmental conflicts* uneven development and social divisions.

In recent years much attention has been given to the unparalleled economic development of East Asia. In The Changing Capital Markets of East Asia the contributors look at the growing sophistication of capital markets in this area and discuss the possible economic and political consequences.The theme of the book is more strategic than technical and the work does not confine itself to a basic market analysis. The Changing Capital Markets of East Asia presents a valuable guide for all those interested in what causes and determines change in the private and public finance spheres.

It is well known that the female work force has played a large part in the Asian `export miracle.' Yet their role has commonly been depicted as confined to sweat shops and tea houses. This book examines the bigger picture regarding women in the labour market and how this has been changing in the course of development and industrialisation. Drawing on labour force survey data from across the continent, the book includes studies on India, Indonesia, Japan, Korea, Malaysia, the Philippines and Thailand. Written in an accessible style and with the key issues amply supported by up-to-date quantitative data, Women and Industrialisation in Asia produces some surprising results and dispels some common myths regarding the position of female workers in the region.

Japan's savings are among the highest in the world, and these high rates have played a valuable role throughout the post-war period. However, over the next several decades, Japan's population will be ageing rapidly. Will this lower Japanese savings rates?Using up-to-date financial and demographical data, author Robert Dekle finds that the answer to this question is an emphatic 'yes'. Understanding Japanese Saving holds key lessons for Western nations undergoing similar demographic transformations as well as developing countries looking to establish public savings institutions.

This book explores the process of policy-making in Japan providing a valuable insight for academics and policy-makers into Japan's massive trade surpluses and the resultant mounting international pressure to resolve the situation.

This book examines the spectacularly successful economies of East Asia, Japan and South Korea. The comparison of the 'catching-up' process in Japan and South Korea includes studies of the iron and steel and semi-conductor industries. The author shows the difficulties involved in trying to detect general patterns of development, as both countries appear to respond to different technological imperatives. As a result general models of development should be treated with caution, given the need to consider different historical and institutional contexts.