Asia and the Global Economy最新文献

This paper makes the case that time is ripe for the countries in southeast and northeast Asia to actively seek greater integration with India. The case is based on two arguments. First, China has emerged as an increasingly aggressive and belligerent power bringing it into conflict with its neighbors in the South China Sea. Therefore, strategically, these countries would need India, which is the continent's second largest in land area and population with a long common border with China, Second, having embraced the market model, India is poised to emerge as a major economy not just in Asia but also the world. By 2030, it will likely be a $6 trillion economy in 2021 dollars, becoming the third largest economy in the world and second largest in Asia. This prospect makes the country a large potential market for other Asian countries.

North Korean trade networks have adapted to international sanctions through a variety of strategies to solve the problem of operating in a hostile environment at both the global level, and at the local level. At the global level, they have engaged in obfuscation of the nature of trade and actors, use of state prerogatives and resource, and arbitraging the countries in which they operate. At the local cross-border level, North Korean trade networks maintain relationships with brokers that obfuscate their true nature, and engage in smuggling across the Chinese border by land, river, and sea. How North Korean trade networks have adapted to sanctions has implications for denuclearization. First, the sanctions-evading strategies used by North Korea in many respects originated in the changes wrought in the North Korean economy since the 1990s, and as such, they are likely to continue even if sanctions are loosened. Second, while North Korean trade networks have adapted to sanctions, this is not necessarily their optimal scenario for economic development, which has implications for Kim Jong-un's denuclearization strategy. Finally, the trade networks themselves can continue to be used as part of a hedging strategy by North Korea even if denuclearization is continuing apace, but this strategy requires the cooperation of non-North Korean businesses.

There is a big debate on the level of present-day female agency within the household in China. Even though the two sides of the debate make implicit assumptions on historical agency, a direct link is rarely established as we lack information on historical female agency among lower class households. In this paper we use a unique dataset on the ranking of women in the household for rural Yugan County (Jiangxi province, China) for the year 1947 when traditional households were still dominant.

The main conclusion is that, contrary to much of the classic literature on the subject, ranking among females in traditional Chinese households was much less rigid than expected, with most women being in charge at a certain point in their lives. This was mostly driven by gender-specific issues such as a son's taking over as the head of the household, thereby raising his wife's status, but with potential other daughters-in-law (wives of the brothers of the head of the household) ending up as assistants Yet, other factors also play a role. For example, we find a positive impact of traditional education on female agency.

Technological advances of the fourth industrial revolution (4IR) threaten Southeast Asian countries’ industrialization model and expose its workforce to the risk of substitution. Using the Dynamic Pattern Synthesis method to ascertain how Southeast Asian countries are prepared to face these risks, we have identified three clusters based on manufacturing resources and associated them to different levels of technological capabilities. While the Cluster 1 countries Cambodia, Laos and Myanmar prove the least and Cluster 3 nations Malaysia, Thailand and Vietnam the most advanced, the preparedness of Cluster 2 countries Indonesia and the Philippines shows mixed results. Our findings emphasize the importance of human capital and trade paired with strong institutions to advance technological abilities, based on which we discuss each cluster's readiness for the 4IR.

This article provides a detailed introduction to China's launching of a digital currency. We conduct a comparative analysis concerning whether digital currency is a more stable and reliable currency than cryptocurrency and investigate whether a digital renminbi (or yuan) could replace the US dollar as a medium of exchange in international transactions. China has gained a first-mover advantage by rolling out a central bank digital currency (CBDC). But the outcome will depend on the US response as well as the future evolution of the US and Chinese economies. Most other articles on this topic focus on domestic use of the Chinese CBDC. But this study is unique in analyzing the prospects of a digital renminbi as a replacement for the US dollar in international commerce.

Based on the micro data of Chinese enterprises, this paper examines the effects of regional formal institutional environment in China on the location choice and firm performance of Chinese OFDI, and discusses the roles played by international experience and the foreign capital usage. The results show that regional formal institutional environment of China significantly and positively affects the location choice and performance of Chinese OFDI. Moreover, different regional formal institutions have varied effects. In particular, institutional factors represented by the ‘government and market relationship’, ‘product market’ and ‘factor market’ development play the key role. It is also found that actual FDI utilization and firms’ international experience play positive and significant moderation roles in the institutional effect on China's OFDI, but such moderation effects are constrained to ‘intermediary organizations and legal environment’ as the institutional factor only. Therefore, the policy of improving regional institutional quality can have a positive effect on OFDI and corporate performance.

Since the outbreak of the Corona virus, policymakers around the globe introduced numerous emergency measures such as the wearing of masks, restrictions to mobility and travel and the shutdown of large parts of the economy, including firms, workplaces and schools. The implementation of restrictions (lockdown) helped to keep the number of infections below the capacity of health care systems in most countries. While many human lives have been saved, the lockdown contributed to a severe recession at the global scale. This paper examines the economic costs of the Corona virus and the prospects for a solid recovery. Increased uncertainty of private households and firms and the building of buffers against future shocks, lower productivity due to a reversal of the globalization process and a non-optimal policy mix generating inefficiencies and potential risks arising from asset markets can prevent a return to the pre-crisis steady state.

News of aggressive monetary easing by the Bank of Japan in late 2012 contributed to a 45 percent depreciation of the Japanese yen relative to the U.S. dollar. This paper investigates how the depreciation affected the Japanese economy. Exports responded much less than predicted, especially for sectors related to transportation equipment. Imports also responded less than predicted, and the sum of export and import elasticities are too small to meet the Marshall-Lerner condition. A depreciation raises returns for many Japanese stocks, with the response being largest for automobile stocks. A depreciation also raises aggregate Japanese stock returns by twice as much after 2013 as before. This indicates that responses that corporate Japan made to swings in the yen such as transferring production abroad have been good for profitability.

This paper studies the relationship between outward foreign direct investment (OFDI) and domestic performance for Indian firms utilizing propensity score matching combined with a difference-in-differences specification. We find modest effects on total factor productivity (TFP), but complementary effects on exporting and sales. Multiple sources of heterogeneity in treatment effects are considered. Taking the foreign investment decision as one that may differ in intensity, continuous treatment based on dose (OFDI intensity)-response (TFP growth, sales growth, export intensity) functions shows an inverted U-shaped relationship complementing previous exports-performance literature. Export intensity shows a robust relationship in which performance rises relative to a dose of zero, within a range of OFDI intensity. As the foreign involvement of Indian firms is still very low, there appears to be a considerable interval over which OFDI can favorably impact home effects. OFDI policy should support the benefits of outward investment, focusing on firms with small OFDI positions

One view in the literature is that the East Asian economic model is superior to other models in the Global South (i.e. in the developing world), at least in terms of catch-up development and possibly even in innovations beyond the technological frontier. Unlike economic models in Latin America and Sub-Saharan Africa, the East Asian model prioritizes community interests of the work collective, the neighbourhood, the nation-state, and all of humanity over those of individuals, possibly limiting some human rights for the greater benefit of all. Crucial features of the East Asian economic model include relatively low income and wealth inequalities, strong state institutional capacity. The origins of the East Asian economic model can be traced to different trajectories of the development of the Global South since the 16th century.This paper argues that European economic model and the East Asian model have a lot in common. After controlling for the country size and the level of development, it turns out that government consumption as a share of GDP is relatively high in both models, whereas income inequalities are relatively low.