Asian Economic Journal最新文献

The negative effect of a currency appreciation on a country's exports may be attenuated as its export basket becomes more sophisticated. This paper investigates whether exchange rate changes affect China's exports differently depending on their sophistication levels, as measured by the Product Complexity Index (PCI). We estimate exchange rate elasticities for 1242 export categories disaggregated at the HS-4-digit level from 1995 to 2018 using bilateral trade data between China and 190 partner economies. Results indicate that exchange rate fluctuations have negative effects on China's export values, and exchange rate effects are less for more sophisticated exports. This decreasing of exchange rate elasticities for more sophisticated exports holds even when controlling for tariffs. The evidence also shows that, as China has upgraded its export basket over time, the impact of exchange rates on exports has become smaller and less significant. Moreover, the effect of exchange rate related policies on export values via the exchange rate is smaller and less significant for China's more sophisticated exports.

We examine whether CEOs with foreign experience influence firms' export performance. Using a combined dataset based on Chinese-listed firms from 2008 to 2021, we determine that hiring CEOs with foreign experience significantly enhances firms' export performance. In addition, we document that the positive relationship between CEOs' foreign experience and firms' export performance is more pronounced when CEOs have long-term foreign work experience. The impact of foreign experience on firms' export performance varies with CEOs' gender. Furthermore, the advantage of appointing CEOs with foreign experience is only significant when firms have long-time lifespan or receive intensive foreign direct investment. The results are robust to the endogenous CEO selection using instrument variable method, propensity score matching method, and the fixed-effects model. Accordingly, our findings offer policy implications by suggesting that hiring a CEO with foreign experience is an efficient way to improve firms' export performance.

Using national representative cross-sectional data from 8846 rice growing plots in Bangladesh, we analyze the impact of social safety net programs (SSNPs) on rice farmers' productivity and efficiency. This study applied the propensity score matching (PSM) approach to correct the possible self-selection biases arising from observed and unobserved factors affecting a household's SSNP participation decisions. The stochastic frontier production function is estimated separately for participants and non-participants to compare yield and technical efficiency. Our results show that the output elasticities of all inputs except land and fertilizer are significantly higher for non-participants than participants. The SSNP participants are estimated to have 1.95% higher technical efficiency than the non-participants, while their frontier yield is 11.75% higher. The average treatment effect on treated (ATET) also confirms the yield and efficiency-enhancing role of SSNPs, particularly in climate-stressed areas. The study argues for widening the SSNP coverage to increase the marginal farmers' efficiency in climate-vulnerable areas. Other policy interventions include policies to increase farmers' access to land through the proper functioning land market, education, providing literacy training, and different production inputs.

Since December 2010, the Bank of Japan has been purchasing exchange-traded funds (ETFs) that track the Nikkei 225 and TOPIX. In this study, we examine how the Bank of Japan's purchase of ETFs affects companies' profits, innovation investment, and governance using a difference-in-differences method. The results show that the ETF purchase policy lowered the return on assets for TOPIX and Nikkei 225 companies by 0.2%–1.5% and 0.8%–1.8%, respectively. As random assignment of data sources to either treatment or control groups was not possible, we also performed a propensity score method, of which the results were robust. Our study enhances the current understanding of the unintended effects of a central bank purchasing private assets. However, our findings are by no means perfect, and therefore, care will also need to be taken in interpreting the results.

This study estimates the effects of the rapid expansion of digital infrastructure on rural employment and income. We use a triple-difference framework and exploit the geographic variation of the recent universal telecommunication service in China. Empirical results reveal increased broadband adoption after the implementation of the program with governmental subsidy. The universal telecommunication service led to an increase in rural residents’ income and their employment in the non-agricultural sector, especially salaried work. The findings suggest that digital infrastructure promotes the transformation of the rural economy in emerging markets.

We reconsider the role of a sovereign wealth fund in commodity-exporting economies facing recent volatile fluctuations of commodity prices due to the COVID-19 shock. We examine the welfare-improving effect of a sovereign wealth fund from the new perspective of the link between commodity prices and interest rate spreads, which is unique to emerging economies. We show that a sovereign wealth fund becomes more effective in improving welfare for commodity-exporting economies with a stronger link between their commodity prices and interest rate spreads.

This paper examines the impact of local firms’ participation in global value chains (GVCs) on productivity by considering three different patterns of GVC participation. We conducted a DID-PSM estimation involving three countries, Indonesia, the Philippines, and Vietnam, and 17 manufacturing sectors in 2009 and 2015 in a panel framework. We found an endogenous relationship between firm productivity and GVC participation: firms that enter GVCs have high productivity before participating in the GVCs (selection effect), and only Indonesian firms that entered GVCs had high productivity growth after joining GVCs (learning effect). These two effects were only found for firms that both import intermediate goods and export output and not for firms that only either import or export. We also found that indirect exporting does not improve a local firm's productivity. Several recommendations are made to help firms and governments facilitate the participation of firms in GVCs.

This study examines the effects of changes in household economic conditions on cognitive function using individual panel data from the National Survey of the Japanese Elderly. This study captures the objective and subjective economic conditions and examines which aspects of economic conditions affect cognitive function. The results demonstrate that deterioration in economic conditions damages cognitive function. In particular, objective economic conditions measured by income affect the cognitive function of Japanese men. This study also assesses possible pathways through which economic conditions affect cognitive function.

This study examines how birth order affects intergenerational income mobility (IGM) in Japan, focusing on the difference in IGM between firstborn and later-born children. The elasticities of sons’ income with respect to fathers’ income are separately estimated for sons who are firstborn and sons who are later born by family size using a two-sample, two-stage least squares approach. For sons born in 1926–1981, this study finds that in families with four or more children, intergenerational income elasticity (IGE) for firstborn sons is substantially and significantly higher than that for later-born sons. However, no significant birth order effects are found in households with two or three children.

Using a representative sample from Japan and a difference-in-differences strategy, we investigate whether the effect of having grandchildren on the happiness of grandparents varies with the gender of their (own) single child. In line with our expectations, we find that maternal grandmothers have more to lose or less to gain from having grandchildren than paternal grandmothers. In contrast, grandfathers’ changes in happiness do not depend on their own child's gender. This result is explained by the fact that grandmothers are more likely to be involved in childrearing when their daughter has a child.