Asia and the Global Economy最新文献

This paper reports on an empirical analysis of 42,094 public/private companies in China and 21 Eastern European countries to grasp the actual state and determinants of board gender diversity in emerging market firms. We confirmed that firms in these countries are comparable to those in advanced nations in terms of the prevalence of firms recruiting female board members and the female share of board directorships. Furthermore, in emerging market countries, internal promotions are used as often as, or even more often than, external ones to recruit women to director positions. The results revealed that board composition and ownership structure are important determinants of the gender diversity of the corporate board in emerging market firms. We also found that the effects of these factors vary significantly depending on the country/region and the listing status of firms and that two qualitatively different decision-making stages related to the appointment of women to board positions (i.e., a decision as to whether to appoint any women to the board and a decision as to how many board positions should be reserved for women) have a substantial impact on the empirical results.

The international trading system is under threat. Many observers have already expressed serious concerns about the impact of Covid, the war in Ukraine, tensions over Taiwan and other natural and man-made disasters and their effects on the international trading system. Some even doubt its viability and chances of survival. The purpose of this paper is to assess the weight of those arguments. It is argued that the turmoil in global markets is, of course, a factor endangering the system, but the system is threatened even more by its own weaknesses. These are various imperfections in the international trade agreements in the WTO which are dividing the international community into separate groups. It is also shown that economic theory does not help us much to show the directions for policy makers to reach optimal trade agreements. It is argued that the splitting of countries into different negotiating and trading blocs is the optimal step under present conditions.

The rise of “new economic statecraft”—intervention in trade and investment for foreign policy reasons—is increasingly threatening the stability of the global economic system. Building on previous work, we consider the types of intervention we have seen, classifying state measures as behind the border, at the border, and beyond the border. In addition, in the past, we have focused on understanding variation in new forms of economic statecraft through a five-factor model. This paper's central goal is to evaluate alternatives for constraining economic statecraft via institutional approaches. To this end, we draw on an analytical classification framework to theoretically and empirically analyze both sectoral and overall bilateral, minilateral, and multilateral institutional approaches to glean lessons for the management of new economic statecraft.

After a year of record international trade in 2022, it is uncertain whether the future of the global economy is fragmentation or a new institutional structure. The challenges are to re-establish a dispute resolution mechanism, as the WTO process currently allows decisions to be appealed into oblivion, and to extend the coverage of world trade law to address changes in world trade since 1995. This paper argues that the best option for a beyond-WTO institutional order is an expanded Comprehensive and Progressive Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP) and that, absent a functioning WTO appeal system, the Multi-Party Interim Appeal Arbitration Arrangement (MPIA) is a way to resolve appeals. This could lead to a three-tier global trade system as the expanded CPTPP membership observes the highest standard world trade rules, a second group accepts WTO rules but no more, and a third group has no interest in being bound by world trade rules. On the post-2017 record, the USA could be in any of these three groups. The leading Asian trading nations have a key role to play in ensuring that the first group accounts for the majority of world trade, and to encourage countries to want to follow CPTPP standards and to be at the table when extensions to these standards are discussed.

Moving away from a fixed exchange rate in 2005, China has gradually enlarged the band of fluctuations of Renminbi (RMB) and implemented various reforms on its central parity to have a more flexible exchange rate regime. This paper studies the nature of the exchange rate regime in China since the exchange regime reform of August 2015. Relying on the self-exciting threshold autoregressive (SETAR) model, it identifies endogenously the band of inaction beyond which the People's bank of China (China's central bank) starts to intervene in the foreign exchange market to restrict further fluctuations. Based on the comparison of the estimated threshold with the official band, this paper shows that the RMB/USD exchange rate followed an intermediate regime similar to the crawling band but with only one single threshold of intervention which is much lower than the upper boundary of the announced band.

Korea and ASEAN are currently seeing a golden age in their partnership; their trade and investment relations are strengthening rapidly, and ASEAN has become a key player in Korea's diplomacy. However, there are a number of challenges in this relationship, such as Korea's high level of reliance on a single ASEAN member (Vietnam), Korean businesses’ relatively short history in ASEAN, and inconsistencies and ambiguities in Korea's diplomatic approach towards ASEAN. In order to overcome these issues, Korean entities could consider seeking local partners in ASEAN, spotting economic and societal priorities in national and ASEAN development strategies, and taking advantage of ASEAN's intra-regional integration. There are two areas, namely Indonesia's electric vehicle value chain and smart city construction, in which Korea's public and private entities are attempting to gain a foothold by adopting these strategies.

In order for microfinance institutions (MFIs) to significantly impact the society, they must achieve both financial sustainability and outreach goals simultaneously. However, when MFIs prioritize financial sustainability at the expense of their outreach goals, it is regarded as mission drift. This study introduces the concept of the Kuznets curve hypothesis to explain the occurrence of mission drift in MFIs. By analysing data from 1,323 unique MFIs across 105 emerging countries, between 2010 and 2018, our findings corroborate the existence of the Kuznets curve for outreach and financial goals. The findings demonstrate that MFIs initially prioritize their outreach goal of serving more female clients but gradually shift focus towards financial performance as they expand and accumulate fixed assets. Moreover, we also empirically quantified the critical asset size of MFIs beyond which they are less likely to achieve their outreach and financial sustainability goals. The implications of these findings for policy are also discussed.

Narratives that portray macroeconomic policies in Japan as unlike ones pursued in other large economies persist. I revisit how several factors, including monetary, fiscal, and demographic factors impact Japan, the US, and the euro area. Panel VARs driven by factors or observed macroeconomic determinants are used. Many, but not all, of the shocks examined have similar impact across all three economies considered. This is true for monetary policy and the response of global inflation to demographic shocks. The response of real economic activity to many of the shocks considered is also comparable. Fiscal and demographic factors, often omitted in studies of this kind, also significantly impact all three economies although the size of the response does differ across the economies examined. Japan may not be like other systemically important economies in all respects, but its experience is less idiosyncratic than usually portrayed.