Asia and the Global Economy最新文献

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.

The production networks in East Asia and European Union are characterized by large shares of trade in intermediate goods or network trade between countries within each region. However the pattern of network trade in the two regions could be very different due to regional variations in sociocultural, political, historical and institutional factors. This paper investigates and compares the pattern of network trade in East Asia and European Union. It confirms that, while network trade shows a “hub-and-spoke pattern” in European Union, it is more like a “network pattern” in East Asia.

The People's Republic of China (PRC) has become an important importer for many countries. This paper investigates how turbulence in the PRC can spill over to trading partners through the trade channel. Exports from several East and Southeast Asian countries to the PRC exceed 10% of their GDPs. To shed light on countries’ exposures to the PRC, this paper estimates a gravity model. The results indicate that Taipei, China and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations are exposed to the PRC because they produce goods for the Chinese market and exposed to advanced economies because they ship parts and components to the PRC for processing and re-export to the West. South Korea is more exposed to a slowdown in advanced economies that purchase processed exports from the PRC than to a slowdown in the PRC. Major commodity exporters such as Australia, Brazil, Indonesia, and Saudi Arabia and exporters of sophisticated consumption and capital goods such as Germany and Switzerland are exposed to a slowdown in the Chinese domestic market. This paper also estimates import elasticities for the PRC. The results indicate that imports for processing into the PRC are closely linked to processed exports from China to the rest of the world and that ordinary imports are closely linked to Chinese GDP. The renminbi exerts only a weak impact on imports, however. The paper concludes by recommending that firms and countries diversify their export base and their trading partners to reduce their exposures to the PRC and to advanced economies.

By empirically examining the commodity structure of Japan's exports in 2000–2020, the authors have identified product groups with increased, diminished, newly emerged, and lost revealed comparative advantages (RCA). In 2020, Japan had RCA in 24 product groups with relatively high levels of product complexity and thus managed to maintain its highly diversified trade portfolio. However, increasing global competition poses potential risks to Japan's exports. Eight product groups with diminished and two product groups with lost RCA are signs of Japan's unsuccessful adaptation to the structural changes on the world markets. The newly emerged RCA, predominantly in the chemicals and allied industries, still mostly have lower index values in comparison to major trade partners, however, their contribution to Japan's exports is likely to expand. To enhance its comparative advantages, Japan should foster innovation which may positively affect national competitiveness but this depends on how the country will adapt to domestic and global challenges.