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This paper examines the impact of macroprudential policies on the nexus between economic uncertainty and bank risk in emerging Asian economies. We construct our index of economic uncertainty by applying the Generalized Autoregressive Conditional Heteroskedasticity (GARCH)-in-mean model to a series of important macroeconomic variables, and borrow macroprudential policy indices from Cerutti et al. (2017) and Alam et al. (2019). Using bank-level panel data from approximately 600 commercial banks in 11 emerging Asian economies during the period 2000–2016, we find consistent evidence that bank risk increases with economic uncertainty, while macroprudential measures play an ameliorative role in uncertainty-induced bank risk. Our baseline findings are largely driven by macroprudential measures that aim to dampen the credit cycle more than those that target increasing the resilience of the banking sector. Our further analyses of the heterogeneous impacts of macroprudential measures by specific type on the risk of banks show that liquidity-based instruments, reserve requirements and currency instruments play a more conspicuous role in the economic uncertainty‒bank risk nexus than capital-based and asset-side macroprudential instruments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The importance of culture on economic outcomes has been an element of ongoing research mainly in the disciplines outside of mainstream economics such as sociology and anthropology. From an economic perspective, there is a strong feeling among the corporate community that culture can be influential in business dealings. International trade is one area of business where cultural diversity can matter. This paper investigates the effect of trading partner cultural diversity on trade within the gravity model framework. The gravity model incorporates four measures to capture cultural diversity: religion, ethnicity, language and legal origin. Using data on New Zealand's trade with Asia and employing the panel corrected standard errors estimation procedure, the empirical findings reveal that Asian diversity in religion and languages is positively correlated with New Zealand–Asia trade. The results reveal that the expected effects of standard gravity variables, and we conclude that the cultural diversity of trading partners positively influences international trade. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines and compares the determinants of producer and consumer price inflation in ten Asian countries during 2000–2015. In this connection, we also investigate the pass-through of global oil prices, global food prices and exchange rates to domestic producer and consumer prices. The model applied here is based on the dynamic interrelationship between the price variables in the distribution chain. Our results show that external cost-push factors such as oil and food prices are more important in explaining producer price inflation than consumer one. For consumer prices, demand-pull factors still explain much of the variation in inflation. The pass-through of oil (food) prices tends to be higher in oil (food) exporting countries than in oil (food) importing countries. Government policy measures played a role in reducing or delaying the pass-through of oil and food prices to domestic prices. Lastly, exchange rate pass-through tends to be higher in countries with more flexible exchange rates. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper will examine the level of services trade integration in Asia in comparison with Europe and North America. The main empirical findings of this paper are that: (i) the regional bias of services trade in Asia is as high as or higher than in Europe and North America; (ii) in Asia, the regional bias of services trade is higher than that of goods trade, which is in sharp contrast to Europe and North America, where the regional bias of goods trade is higher than that of services trade; and (iii) while Asia's regional bias of goods trade shows a declining trend, that of services trade remains high, although in the future its decline is expected. Asia's relatively high-level of regional bias of services trade can be explained by the following factors: (i) a relatively high prevalence of a shared language (Chinese), which is essential to services trade, but not to goods trade; and (ii) the archipelagic nature of the region, which inhibits goods trade more than services trade. In contrast, for example, major European countries share land borders with their neighbors and they speak different languages. In order to deepen Asia's services trade integration, two policies are necessary. First, effective regional services agreements are critical to enhancing the level of integration. Second, policies to increase the trade of crisis-resilient services, such as professional services and insurance, as opposed to crisis-vulnerable services, such as transport and travel, are necessary. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Asia is densely populated and home to most of the world's megacities. However, its urban primacy and urban concentration, especially those of developing Asia, are much lower than their counterparts in the rest of the world. This is an important puzzle that has not been addressed in the literature. Motivated by a theory of Krugman and Livas Elizondo, this paper attributes the lower urban concentration and urban primacy to higher levels of trade openness in Asia. Empirical evidences are provided using panel data from developing countries in Asia, from the rest of the developing world, and from China. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

As we approach the 2015 date by which the Millenium Development Goals (MDGs) are to be achieved, there is increasing scrutiny as to the progress towards their achievement. The MDGs were intended to be global targets and not necessarily to be assessed at the country level. In other words, countries were to contribute to the global targets but not be held to account against them, as they were originally conceived. In practice though, countries are assessed against the global MDG targets. It is appropriate that continuing interest be paid to the achievement of the MDGs, however it is also necessary that the global community now start to turn its attention to what framework for addressing the world's development needs beyond the MDG timeframe following 2015. The ‘poverty landscape’ has changed significantly in the last decade – partly as a result of the international community's focus on the MDGs – and so it is necessary that a new approach to poverty alleviation reflect this changed reality. This paper introduces a range of papers presented at an international conference on the MDGs that critically analyse the current MDGs and pose questions as to how should we follow the MDGs beyond 2015. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper provides the theoretical guide and introduction to a selected list of papers evaluating the drivers of technological catch-up experiences from Asia. It departs from neoclassical preoccupation with markets as the sole or dominant institution of economic allocation by arguing that the evidence supports the evolutionary logic of macro, meso and micro interactions between several institutions, depending on the actors involved, structural location and taxonomic and trajectory elements of technical change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper offers an assessment of the mainstreaming of fisheries in national development plans and Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers within the Asia-Pacific region. Fisheries and aquaculture in the region make a significant contribution to world fisheries production. Importantly, those directly involved in the sector are predominantly small-scale artisanal producers, a group traditionally regarded as extremely vulnerable in poverty terms. Therefore, mainstreaming - integrating a sector into every stage of the national policy process - may have important welfare implications for those drawing livelihoods from the industry. This paper examines the significance of fisheries and aquaculture to developing Asia-Pacific economies, and evaluates the extent to which the sector has been mainstreamed in national development and poverty reduction strategies using a content analysis framework. We conclude that the representation of fisheries issues, the recognition of sectoral poverty, policy responses, and stakeholder representation, is typically greater than in other fish producing regions, and there are many examples of best practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper develops a framework that uses fuzzy-set theory to measure human well-being. Fuzzy sets allow for gradual transition from one state to another while also allowing one to incorporate rules and goals, and hence are more appropriate for measuring outcomes that are ambiguous. Such ambiguity is an inherent characteristic of cross-country achieved well-being assessments. This framework is used to provide a fuzzy representation of the well-known Human Development Index (HDI) and its three components. Fuzzy HDI estimates for 14 Pacific Asian countries are provided and compared with non-fuzzy estimates. Quite large differences in rankings emerge. The paper concludes by suggesting that fuzzy measures should be used more widely to measure achieved well-being outcomes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper considers the conflicts between the West and Asia in the age of globalization and its concomitant ideology of liberal values. It concludes that while the material wealth of the West is welcome everywhere, Asia has resisted, and will continue to resist, the attempts to homogenize Asian culture. The paper argues that the West should accept differences in human rights, ecological policies and forms of governments, and limit itself to the equalization of opportunities for commerce and trade. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Foreign direct investment (FDI) has fueled the engine of growth of the Malaysian economy since the early 1970s. Most literature in the area of FDI uses Dunning's eclectic paradigm to explain the who, where, and how of FDI. However, these explanations are inadequate to explain the timing (or when) of FDI, especially during periods of uncertainty. Recent work on FDI introduces two further factors to explain the behavior of foreign investors during times of uncertainty, namely, reversibility and delayability. This paper utilizes these two additional factors to explain the behavior of potential foreign investors. Employing data obtained from the Malaysian Investment Development Authority (MIDA), the paper analyzes the changing nature of sectoral FDI and links this to the reversibility and delayability factors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper addresses the question of how the new information and communication technologies (ICTs) can potentially help reduce poverty in developing countries. Starting with the definition and types of ICTs, the paper discusses a number of instances where various ICTs have been fruitfully applied to improve the welfare of rural people in a number of developing economies. The paper also reviews how ICTs can be an indirect instrument of poverty reduction through their impact on growth. Finally the paper discusses the various factors that influence the adoption of new ICTs and the policies developing countries can adopt to take advantage of the new ICT revolution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper discusses the emerging evidence relating to the origins and aftermath of the 1997 Asian financial crisis and its implications for the regulation of the short-term capital account. First, it suggests that the evidence supports an interpretation of the crisis as arising from the inherent instability of short-term, highly liquid capital markets rather than one which focuses solely on common, fundamental weaknesses in the most affected economies. Second, the paper argues that the balance between the state and international and domestic capital is changing as a result of the crisis and that accelerated liberalization and deregulation further weaken the ability of the nation-state to pursue specific development objectives. Given that the nationstate remains the locus of development efforts, liberalization of capital account transactions poses serious problems for policy-makers, with no clear consensus as to the extent of the costs and benefits of alternative policy options. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A large part of the upsurge in global Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) until the global financial crisis of 2008–2009 has been due to mergers and acquisitions (M&As) as opposed to Greenfield FDI. Also, noteworthy is the growing significance of developing Asia in these cross-border M&As, both as sources of finance as well as destinations of investments. These cross-border M&A flows have deepened the economic integration of developing Asia with the global economy. This paper examines the extent and determinants of M&As to and from developing Asia over the period 2000–2010 with particular emphasis on the financial drivers of intraregional M&As. Global liquidity and risk conditions, as proxied by London Inter Bank Offered Rate (LIBOR), consistently show up as being an important driver of intraregional flows. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper begins with a commentary on the unfolding of the Asian crisis, and includes summary information on the effect of the crisis on the rote of economic growth and unemployment in the region. A review of current thinking on the causes of the crisis follows. This review evaluates whether the Asian crisis was caused primarily by weaknesses in the affected economies, such as inappropriate exchange rote policies and inadequate financial regulation, or by international market failures. The paper concludes with a critical analysis of the International Monetary Fund's role in the crisis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper provides a political-economy analysis of the Asian financial crisis, with a focus on the economies of Indonesia, Korea, Malaysia and Thailand. It explains why the crisis affected each of these countries differently and why the responses to the crisis differ between governments. The paper argues that banking crises need not necessarily lead to currency crises. In particular, it provides an argument that, despite its banking crisis. Korea should have avoided a currency crisis because its economic fundamentals were fundamentally sound. That it failed to do so was due to the inertia of the previous government and IMF policies, which have the support of the current government because they are consistent with its political imperative. This paper also examines the roles played by the United States, Japan and China, which are the key regional players in the region, in the crisis. It argues that the behaviour of the key regional players was very much dictated by their domestic and international agendas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Do governments in the emerging Asia and Pacific region independently set corporate tax rates? This paper answers the question and contributes to the growing empirical tax competition literature by (1) generating a predictable tax reaction function considering the ‘lumpy’ nature of economic geography; (2) using GMM to estimate the tax reaction functions using panel data of 14 countries in the Asia and Pacific region between 1980 and 2007. We find evidence of strategic fiscal policy interaction. Globalization has positive effects on the interactive policy setting. Country size has also positive effect but the effects are offset when the openness deepens. Furthermore, a substitution relation between capital and labor is implied. Overtime, countries in the Asia and Pacific region seem to become more competitive in corporate tax rates. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the international capital mobility in North Asia (South Korea and Taiwan), South Asia (Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore and Thailand) and India. In particular, the Feldstein-Horioka puzzle, which states domestic investment and savings are highly and positively correlated, was examined for cointegration using an autoregressive distributed lag bounds testing procedure. The results did not show a positive correlation between savings and investment. There was essentially no relationship at level between savings and investment in all eight cases. Thirteen out of 16 structural break tests or 81.25% indicate no structural breaks. The analysis concluded with certain limitations that there is high capital mobility in the economies under study. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Tertiarisation of the labour market has been associated globally with economic progress. In developing countries, labour market deformities may push people into the service economy out of distress. This paper examines the tertiarisation process in the Indian labour market to identify the reasons behind such trends and the likely impact of such movements. It is observed that the employment growth in the tertiary sector had been dynamic and growth-induced during the 1980s, but in recent times has become distress-driven. Sub-sectors within the tertiary sector are behaving differently, indicating the heterogeneity of this sector. Policymakers should note these issues and take appropriate steps not only to boost high-end jobs but also to improve productivity and returns in low-end jobs. Only then will a tertiary sector revolution in India be beneficial to the workers en masse and be sustainable. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The fast growth of the manufacturing sector in Indonesia during the 1970s and 1980s and its relatively steady growth during the 1990s and early 2000s were argued to be the result of the kind of industrial policy reforms that were implemented. However, another important development since the early 1970s has been the rapidly deteriorating quality of environmental conditions in the country. Thus, the purpose of this paper is to analyse how industrial policy reforms have impacted on the environmental performance of industry, as well as to describe whether the introduction of industrial environmental policies has reduced industries' environmental impact. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper provides the robust stylized facts for recent Japanese business cycle fluctuations, by examining the cyclical component of macroeconomic time series based on the frequency domain analysis. The results confirm many of the conventional views on business cycles in Japan. Among the most interesting findings are that non-scheduled hours worked plays a key role as a buffer for labor inputs. Distinctively, because of the behavior of non-scheduled cash earnings and bonuses, wages in Japan are very sensitive to changes in the level of economic activity. Also significant, the relationship between money and output has changed dramatically after the collapse of the bubble economy in 1991. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Unemployment and underemployment are the most pressing problems in Asia today, as reflected in the widespread underutilization rate of about 29% of the total labor force. Most labor forces in developing countries cannot afford to be completely unemployed and the standard labor force framework currently in use worldwide is biased toward counting the labor force as employed rather than unemployed. This systematically undervalues the full extent of the unemployment problem. The underemployment indicator is then introduced to overcome the issue but the existing guidelines for measuring time related-underemployment using the cut-off point for working full-time, set the threshold too low, resulting in the considerable under-representation of underemployment. This paper suggests a better way of determining the threshold using the cluster method. The robustness of its results is assessed and the overall results suggest that the proposed cut-off point of 40 working hours per week is the best one. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During the 1997 economic crisis in Asia, we observed that several East Asian economies encountered significant external and internal shocks that led to a widespread economic recession. The severe exchange rate depreciation may have harmed the supply side of these economies such that production was contracted. Many argue that the initial tightened domestic policies aimed at countering these shocks and restoring economic growth may have further exacerbated the initial crisis by contracting the domestic sector. This paper analyzes the impact of anticipated and unanticipated changes in the real exchange rate, fiscal spending, the money supply, and energy prices on output and price in Korea, Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, and Thailand. The results indicate that anticipated real depreciation during the crisis may have adversely affected the supply side, shrinking output growth while accelerating price inflation. In contrast, the combined effects of supply and demand channels render the outcome of unanticipated currency depreciation inconclusive on output growth and price inflation. Indonesia and Malaysia have experienced a significant reduction in average real output growth beyond the crisis period with a significant increase in domestic price inflation in Indonesia only. In most cases, we credit accommodating policies for countering external shocks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the past two decades, US-Asia linkages have improved tremendously with the gradual transformation of some Asian countries as sources of high skilled as well as low cost labor. Extensive research on US-Japan relationships have been undertaken in the 1980s and the 1990s with a progression of research toward the four tigers and now China. South and South East Asian economies are usually neglected in academic research on Asia. This paper provides a comprehensive examination of business links (trade, foreign direct investment, licensing, and patents) and knowledge links (labor flow, publications and citations) within the context of technology transfer and technology cooperation between the two regions. The data show that the United States is increasingly dependent on imports from Asia while Asian nations are dependent on US FDI and technology licenses. For knowledge links, the United States continues to attract Asian scientists and engineers and, over the past ten years, interregional collaborations have strengthened. Economic linkages in the past 30 years are now complemented by knowledge links, which is creating transnational knowledge networks and will eventually facilitate further development of the science and technology workforce and innovation in Asian nations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Four Asian economies – Hong Kong, Singapore, Korea and Taiwan – have grown at spectacular speeds adopting different strategies. Past debates focused on their growth takeoff. The present paper studies their future outlook. As an economy matures, sustaining economic performance requires innovation and technology upgrading. Hong Kong, under a minimalist administration, is now critically deficient in technology. Singapore, dependent on foreign multinationals, is struggling to become a creator and not just a user of technology. We seek to explain why Hong Kong and Singapore are so much less innovative than Korea and Taiwan. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The pre-crisis exchange rate regimes of Asian countries are often described as soft or de facto dollar pegs. There is also a widespread suspicion that many countries in the region still remain covert dollar-peggers. This paper provides evidence that even before 1997 few Asian currencies were tied to the dollar as rigidly as widely believed, and even less so in recent years. Our discussion has implications for debate about the root cause of the Asian crisis and also for the more general issue of developing countries' fear of floating. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the current debate on globalization, a central concern is that foreign direct investment (FDI) may relocate jobs from high-income countries to labor-abundant economies forcing a competitive downward decline in real wages all around, known as 'race to the bottom' (RTB). The core of the RTB hypothesis is that FDI inflows increase the elasticity of demand for labor. This is a necessary condition for pushing wages downward toward minimum or subsistence levels in the global labor market. This paper provides empirical evidence from four Asian economies (China, the Philippines, Singapore, and Thailand) that support the RTB argument. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In a large-scale study of purchasing agents in Australia, New Zealand, Thailand and China, the authors investigated the factors deemed influential in respondents' industrial procurement decisions, the role played by a variety of functional departments, and the effects of major environmental factors on this process. The paper reports a number of expected and unexpected findings in relation to the internal process of influence and confirms the need for industrial marketers to bear in mind the multiple requirements of the decision-making unit (DMU). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since mid-1997 East Asia, which had long been acclaimed as the driving force of the global economy, has been wracked by financial turmoil. The international policy response has been led primarily by the International Monetary-Fund with the full support of both the United States government and the European Union. Those who predicted that IMF policy prescriptions would quickly bring the Asian economic crisis under control have seriously underestimated the depth of the recession that has hit the region. This paper offers an explanation of the causes of the crises and, in doing so, provides a critique of the international policy response. It begins with an examination of the way that the crisis exemplifies the terminal collapse of Southeast Asia's fast-track development model through case studies of Thailand and the Philippines. The second part offers a critical analysis of the IMF policies which have not only institutionalized stagnation in the region but have been used overtly by the Clinton administration (and the EU by default) to promote the trade and investment objectives of the leading states in the global economy. The third part examines the implications of IMF-directed structural adjustment and suggests that with the strategic withdrawal of capital, East Asia may be on the threshold of a prolonged era of recession. The conclusion argues that the very severity of the crisis demands the serious consideration of a range of alternative political and economic strategies that will be essential for the pursuit of a model of sustainable development in the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the mid-1990s, the idea of a trilateral or tripolar world order based on the economically most advanced macro-regions North America, Western Europe and East Asia — the new Triad — has gained much acceptance in Asian and European policy-making circles. Though the triangle imagery is still quite far from what seems to be reality, it provided the major rationale for the creation of the Asia-Europe Meeting (ASEM) process which was designed to strengthen the 'weak leg' in the triadic interregional relationship. The paper analyses the role of ASEM in the construction of the new Triad and identifies five functions of ASEM in this context. It concludes that the recent Asian economic crisis tends to undermine the rationale on which ASEM was built, at least temporarily, whereas ASEM itself may not lose its importance for the countries involved. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]