Showing papers on "East Asia published in 1994"
944 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the sources of economic growth of the East Asian newly industrialized countries are analyzed empirically using the aggregate meta-production function framework, and the results confirm the Boskin and Lau (Technical Paper 217, Stanford University, 1990) finding that technical progress can be represented as purely capital augmenting in all countries.
Abstract: The sources of economic growth of the East Asian newly industrialized countries are analyzed empirically using the aggregate meta-production function framework. The sample consists of nine countries—the four East Asian newly industrialized countries (Hong Kong, Singapore, South Korea, and Taiwan) and the Group-of-Five industrialized countries (France, West Germany, Japan, the United Kingdom, and the United States). The results reaffirm the Boskin and Lau (Technical Paper 217, Stanford University, 1990) finding that technical progress can be represented as purely capital-augmenting in all countries. However, the hypothesis that there has been no technical progress during the postwar period cannot be rejected for the four East Asian newly industrialized countries. By far the most important source of economic growth of the East Asian newly industrialized countries is capital accumulation, accounting for between 48 and 72% of their economic growth, in contrast to the case of the Group-of-Five industrialized countries, in which technical progress has played the most important role, accounting for between 46 and 71% of their economic growth. An international comparison of the productive efficiencies of the Group-of-Five countries and the East Asian newly industrialized countries indicates no apparent convergence between the technologies of the two groups of countries. J. Japan. Int. Econ., September 1994, 8 (3), pp. 235-271. Department of Economics, Stanford University, Stanford, California 94305-6072.
658 citations
Book•
01 Dec 1994
TL;DR: In search of origins creating new plants and animals new technology and the search for agricultural origins the fertile crescent Europe and Africa East Asia Middle and South America Eastern North America and the Southwest as mentioned in this paper.
Abstract: In search of origins creating new plants and animals new technology and the search for agricultural origins the fertile crescent Europe and Africa East Asia Middle and South America Eastern North America and the Southwest the search for explanations.
636 citations
Posted Content•
TL;DR: This paper found no evidence that East Asian countries are assigning increased weight to the yen in their exchange rate policies, despite a gradual increase in regional use of the yen as an invoicing currency, and all of the increase in intra-regional trade in the 1980s can be attributed to rapid growth in East Asia; there is no evidence of an intensifying bias toward intra-region trade as there is in Europe and the Western Hemisphere.
Abstract: One finds evidence of regional trading blocs, even after correcting bilateral trade flows for the influence of distance, GNPs, and other economic variables (which most other studies have not done). In this paper we also find a role for bilateral exchange rate variability in the equation. Some will suggest that the bias toward intra-regional trade is increasing in East Asia, that the yen is playing a greater role in the region, and that a movement by some Asian countries toward the yen and away from the dollar is a contributing factor to the diversion of trade flows. We find no evidence to support this hypothesis or its components however. We find relatively little evidence that East Asian countries are assigning increased weight to the yen in their exchange rate policies, despite a gradual increase in regional use of the yen as an invoicing currency. We also find that all of the increase in intra-regional trade in the 1980s can be attributed to rapid growth in East Asia; there is no evidence of an intensifying bias toward intra-regional trade as there is in Europe and the Western Hemisphere. Rather, East Asian countries are found to be strongly linked to North America. Finally, the effect of exchange rate stability on bilateral trade flows, though apparently significant statistically, may be due to reverse causality. Section 1: Introduction
479 citations
Book•
01 Aug 1994
TL;DR: The authors used structural vector autoregression (SVA) techniques to examine the symmetry of disturbances and the speed with which economies adjust as key criteria affecting the decision of whether to form a monetary union.
Abstract: The literature on optimal currency areas identifies the symmetry of disturbances and the speed with which economies adjust as key criteria affecting the decision of whether to form a monetary union. This paper uses structural vector autoregression techniques to examine these issues for three regions: Western Europe, the Americas, and East Asia. The results suggest three country groupings that best satisfy these criteria: Northern Europe (Germany, France, the Netherlands, Belgium, Denmark, Austria, and possibly Switzerland); Northeast Asia (Japan, Taiwan, and Korea); and Southeast Asia (Hong Kong, Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, and possibly Thailand).
451 citations
Book•
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01 Jan 1994
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors studied the effect of the Tibetan Plateau (Qinghai-Xizang) on the Monsoon and its association with major weather events in China.
Abstract: One: The Summer Monsoon in East Asia. Two: The Winter Monsoon in East Asia. Three: The Short-Range Fluctuations of Monsoons and Their Association with the Major Weather Events in China. Four: The Medium and Long-Range Fluctuations of Monsoons and Their Association with Floods and Droughts over China. Five: Effects of the Tibetan Plateau (Qinghai-Xizang) on the Monsoon. Six: Heat, Moisture and Energy Budgets over the Monsoon Regions of China and Some Aspects of Monsoon Dynamics.
377 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors pointed out that the World Bank's market fundamentalism is a failure to study seriously how elements of the East Asian model can be adapted to suit conditions in other countries.
304 citations
TL;DR: For example, South Korean students have recently achieved the highest mean scores in science and math in the International Assessment of Educational Progress (IAEP) administered by the Educational Testing Service to 13-year-olds in 19 countries, with Taiwanese students having achieved second highest.
Abstract: ment in Japan has become widely known,1 and South Korean students have recently achieved the highest mean scores in science and math in the International Assessment of Educational Progress (IAEP) administered by the Educational Testing Service to 13-year-olds in 19 countries, with Taiwanese students having achieved second highest.2 This international success is well known in South Korea, having been widely reported in the media, and has become a source of national pride. It is not immediately apparent why children in South Korea and Taiwan should be so successful in science and math. Neither subject is a traditional strength of East Asian intelligentsias, and educated Koreans often respond to questions about South Korean students' mastery of math by noting that none of the world's famous mathematicians have been East Asian. Lip service has been given to scientific and technical education since the founding of the Republic of Korea in 1948, but the actual emphasis in educational planning up until the 1970s was citizenship educationinculcating loyalty, patriotism, self-reliance, and anticommunism. Even the ideology of modernization introduced in the early 1960s focused on spirit rather than technology. In-su Son has characterized the educational policy of Huii-s6k Mun, minister of education and culture during the Democratic Party Government of 1960-61, thusly: "If modernization is realizing humanity by making daily life more rational, then the spiritual aspect of modernization is even more important than the material, and the spiritual must precede [the material], if only in stages ... human propensities and the structure of consciousness must be reconstructed as the driving force of social reform."3 Serious and sustained special attention to scientific and technical education came only in 1973
274 citations
TL;DR: This article argued that a burgeoning China poses a long-term danger to Asia-Pacific security for two reasons: first, despite Japan's present economic strength, a future Chinese hegemony in East Asia is a strong possibility, while Japan's inherent weaknesses create doubts about the ability of the Japanese to increase or sustain.
Abstract: I Northeast Asia has been relatively peaceful for the past forty years. The post-Cold War era, however, will bring new security challenges to the Asia-Pacific region. Perhaps the most serious of these challenges involves China’s expected emergence as a major economic power in the near future. While a developed, prosperous Chinese economy offers the region many potential benefits, it would also give China the capability to challenge Japan for domination of East Asia. China’s recent economic growth signals a change in East Asia’s distribution of power and draws renewed attention to Chinese foreign policy. What are the consequences of Chinese economic growth for regional security?’ I argue that a burgeoning China poses a long-term danger to Asia-Pacific security for two reasons. First, despite Japan’s present economic strength, a future Chinese hegemony in East Asia is a strong possibility. China is just beginning to realize its vast economic potential, while Japan’s inherent weaknesses create doubts about the ability of the Japanese to increase or sustain
226 citations
Posted Content•
TL;DR: The World Bank's The East Asian Miracle: Economic Growth and Public Policy makes official what East Asian specialists had long known: most of the high-performing Asian economies have had extensive government intervention, and some of these interventions, in the areas of credit and exports, have worked in fostering both growth and equity.
Abstract: The World Bank's The East Asian Miracle: Economic Growth and Public Policy makes official what East Asian specialists had long known: most of the high-performing Asian economies have had extensive government intervention, and some of these interventions, in the areas of credit and exports, have worked in fostering both growth and equity. Nevertheless, the bank finds in the East Asian experience a confirmation of its `market-friendly' approach to policy. Upon closer look, some of the critical bits of analysis contained in the report turn out to be weak and questionable. Consequently, many of the report's conclusions and recommendations, relating to trade and industrial strategy in particular, have to be discounted heavily.
212 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors examined the common stochastic trends among national stock prices of the U.S. and five East Asian countries, including Japan, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore, and South Korea.
TL;DR: The World Bank's East Asian Miracle study as discussed by the authors was intended to be an objective re-examination of the role of government interventions in economic, particularly industrial, development, and reflected a widespread unease that the Bank was too strongly committed to a neoliberal view of the development process.
TL;DR: The authors argue that the Confucian thesis is a form of Orientalist economics that arose in the context of, and in turn supported, a very conservative politics, and that the reality is one of conspicuous gender disparities in the distribution of work and reward.
Abstract: Since the 1960s, East Asia's «four little dragons» have become the fastest growing areas of the world economy. Inspired by a newfound pride in the traditions of Chinese culture, Chinese scholars and China specialists have traced the roots of the region's economic dynamism to its «traditional ConAjcian culture,» one of familism, collectivism, and mutual benefit. Focusing in this article on one embodiment of Confucian culture, the Chinese family firm, I question the substantive interpretations and emancipatory implications of this new discourse. Historical study of 25 Taiwanese enterprises suggests that the reality is one of conspicuous gender disparities in the distribution of work and reward. The division of labor in these firms was not a natural reflection of tradition but a political construction of the family/firm head, who was pressed to build his firm out of family resources by several features of the national and global political economies. I argue that the Confucian thesis is a form of Orientalist economics that arose in the context of, and in turn supported, a very conservative politics. By simultaneously valorizing Chinese «collectivism» and obfuscating the gender, ethnic, and other inequalities on which it is based, this discourse not only reproduced Orientalist constructions of Chinese culture, but it also discouraged the discovery of subjugated knowledges and lent support to a new, flexible form of capitalist accumulation that is based on exploitation of gender and other social inequalities. [Orientalism, power/knowledge, gender inequality, family business, political economy, flexible accumulation, China/Taiwan]
Journal Article•
TL;DR: The population policy and program of China should strive to realize a reasonable population structure and distribution and to develop human resources so China can meet its needs for sustainable development.
Book•
01 Jan 1994
TL;DR: McMahon as discussed by the authors examines the motivations behind America's pursuit of Pakistan and India as strategic Cold War prizes and examines the profound consequences of America's complex political, military, and economic commitments on the subcontinent.
Abstract: Focusing on the two tumultuous decades framed by Indian independence in 1947 and the Indo-Pakistani war of 1965, The Cold War on the Periphery explores the evolution of American policy toward the subcontinent. McMahon analyzes the motivations behind America's pursuit of Pakistan and India as strategic Cold War prizes. He also examines the profound consequences-for U.S. regional and global foreign policy and for South Asian stability-of America's complex political, military, and economic commitments on the subcontinent. McMahon argues that the Pakistani-American alliance, consummated in 1954, was a monumental strategic blunder. Secured primarily to bolster the defense perimeter in the Middle East, the alliance increased Indo-Pakistani hostility, undermined regional stability, and led India to seek closer ties with the Soviet Union. Through his examination of the volatile region across four presidencies, McMahon reveals the American strategic vision to have been "surprinsgly ill defined, inconsistent, and even contradictory" because of its exaggerated anxiety about the Soviet threat and America's failure to incorporate the interests and concerns of developing nations into foreign policy. The Cold War on the Periphery addresses fundamental questions about the global reach of postwar American foreign policy. Why, McMahon asks, did areas possessing few of the essential prerequisites of economic-military power become objects of intense concern for the United States? How did the national security interests of the United States become so expansive that they extended far beyond the industrial core nations of Western Europe and East Asia to embrace nations on the Third World periphery? And what combination of economic, political, and ideological variables best explain the motives that led the United States to seek friends and allies in virtually every corner of the planet? McMahon's lucid analysis of Indo-Pakistani-Americna relations powerfully reveals how U.S. policy was driven, as he puts it, "by a series of amorphous-and largely illusory-military, strategic, and psychological fears" about American vulnerability that not only wasted American resources but also plunged South Asia into the vortex of the Cold War.
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01 Jan 1994
Posted Content•
TL;DR: The extent and character of trade reform in 32 countries in South Asia, East Asia, Africa, and Latin America between the mid−1980s and 1992/93 are discussed in this article.
Abstract: The recent and apparently broad move towards unilateral trade liberalization in the developing world has not been systematically documented, nor has comparative data been compiled. This study investigates the extent and character of trade reform in 32 countries in South Asia, East Asia, Africa, and Latin America. Changes in tariffs, non−tariff barriers, foreign exchange controls, and export impediments between the mid−1980s and 1992/93 are discussed. Data are presented on changes in the level, range, and dispersion of tariffs, and coverage of quantitative restraints. Similarities and differences both within and between regions are evaluated.
TL;DR: The East Asian Miracle: Economic Growth and Public Policy as discussed by the authors concludes that East Asian economic success has little to do with government and that industrial policies used in East Asian economies have been effective, non-neoclassical tools for economic development.
TL;DR: The authors argued that Asia could easily destabilise, with a classical balance of power politics coming to dominate the international relations of the region, and the more liberal view argued that the complex interdependence of the late twentieth century has curtailed military rivalry between industrialised states.
Abstract: As in other regions, international security in East Asia has been transformed by the end of the Cold War. Yet, debate about the direction of change, let alone the reality of the transformation, has been much slower to develop in this region than in Europe. The reasons for these tardy reactions suggest that East Asians, and an interested wider world, have serious cause for concern about the risks of conflict in East Asia. The debate about East Asian security is dominated by two theories of the future. On the one hand, there is the 'back to the future' view espoused by realists, who argue that the end of the Cold War has released indigenous conflicts that were previously suppressed. It is argued that Asia could easily destabilise, with a classical balance of power politics coming to dominate the international relations of the region. On the other hand, the more liberal view argues that the complex interdependence of the late twentieth century has curtailed military rivalry between industrialised states. The East Asian states, especially Japan and the newly industrialising countries (NICs), are ensnared in this web of trading and financial dependencies. Combined with the decline of the divisive influence of the Cold War, this interdependence can eradicate serious conflict in the region. Both of these arguments are persuasive, but the fear is that the pessimists may be closer to the truth. Assessing the balance between them is complicated by the aversion of Asians to being honest about their security concerns.
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors argue that competition policy in both Japan and Korea was oriented towards creating dynamic efficiency (the highest long term productivity growth rate), and that it did so by measures, operating at both industry and firm level, which sometimes restricted competition and sometimes encouraged it.
TL;DR: In the newly industrializing economies (NIEs) of Hong Kong, the Republic of Korea, Singapore, and Taiwan (China), the entire working population has benefited from labor market institutions.
Abstract: In the newly industrializing economies (NIEs) of Hong Kong, the Republic of Korea, Singapore, and Taiwan (China), the entire working population has benefited from labor market institutions. The East Asian NIEs attained and maintained generally full employment, improved their job mixes, raised real earnings, and lowered their rates of poverty. This article reaches two principal conclusions. First, labor market conditions continued to improve in all four economies in the 1980s at rates remarkably similar to their rates of aggregate economic growth. Second, labor market repression was not a major factor in the growth experiences of these economies in the 1980s. It thus appears that labor market repression is neither necessary nor desirable for outward-oriented economic development.
TL;DR: In the last two decades, South Korea has moved from the production of labor-intensive manufactures to more capital and skill-intensive sectors such as textiles and simple electronics as mentioned in this paper.
Abstract: growth have been in the range of 6-7% (Young). During this period, production and trade patterns in the Pacific Basin have undergone profound structural changes. In the last two decades, South Korea has moved from the production of labor-intensive manufactures to more capital and skill-intensive sectors. Thailand, traditionally an exporter of natural resource-based commodities, showed a sharp fall in its export share of agriculture and a sharp rise in the share of manufactures such as textiles and simple electronics (Gehlhar). In contrast, while the importance of agriculture in total North American output has fallen, its share in exports has remained stable in recent years, as export volumes continue to increase. The growth of total East Asian exports naturally coincides with rapid import growth. In order to expand their manufacturing capacity, East Asian countries have imported massive amounts of capital equipment. But expansion of the manufacturing sector also pulls labor away from agriculture, at the very time income growth is leading to increased per capita food demands. Therefore, we have seen a strong rise in the demand for farm and food imports in East Asia. Indeed, during the 1980s, this region emerged as the fastest growing market for agricultural commodities, accounting for the bulk of the increase in U.S. exports (USDA 1993a).
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15 Nov 1994
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors present the world within the Third World: diverging development - types of developing country, urban bias and environmental deterioration - low-income Africa: rural neglect and environmental degradation in Africa population, technology and land.
Abstract: Part 1 Overview - world within the Third World: diverging development - types of developing country. Part 2 Urban bias and environmental deterioration - low-income Africa: rural neglect and environmental degradation in Africa population, technology and land - a soft-tech greening of Africa. Part 3 Income inequality - low-income Asia: income inequality - distance and development in low-income Asia the costs of Autakic industrialization in China and India. Part 4 Primacy and hyperurbanization - mid-income Latin America: the city size controversy - Latin American experience restructuring the city and settlement hierarchy. Part 5 Hard lessons from the new international economic order - mineral economies: critiques of international trade the mineral eceonomies - from trade confrontation to sustainable development. Part 6 The role of the state - mid-income East Asia: East Asia's developmental escalator - Malaysia and Indonesia a prudent role for the state - the industrial policy controversy in resource-poor Korea and Taiwan. Part 7 Prospects: incorporating environment sustainability, income redistribution and democratization into economic development.
TL;DR: The significance of global capitalism and the substance of the democratic transitions of the past few years are subjects of considerable debate as mentioned in this paper, and the significance of these democratic transitions and their substance is subject to considerable debate.
Abstract: The end of the Cold War has contributed to the dramatic globalisation of market economics and electoral democracy. But the significance of global capitalism and the substance of the democratic transitions of the past few years are subjects of considerable debate. Some observers continue to emphasise that the end of the Cold War represents the triumph of liberalism and it is only a matter of time before the former Soviet Bloc along with the rest of the world (led by the 'newly industrialised countries' (NICS) of East Asia) arrives at the capitalist prosperity and democratic stability currently seen to prevail in North America, Western Europe and Japan.' Certainly the end of 'state socialism' in Eastern Europe and the former USSR has made an important contribution in symbolic and substantive terms to the demise of socialist development models generally and 'state socialism' in the 'Third World' more particularly.2 Nevertheless, although the so-called Asian Tigers (South Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Singapore) are at the centre of a major economic boom which is lifting them out of their 'Third World' status and shifting the axis of global political economy to the Pacific Rim, the 'neoliberal' governments of the rest of Asia, the former Soviet Bloc, Latin America, Africa and Oceania are not necessarily guiding their people to consumer capitalism and parliamentary democracy. Democratic transitions, where they have taken place at all, have often remained superficial, while neoliberal economic policies have stimulated economic growth without necessarily improving the quality of life for the majority of the population. The acceleration of economic and political globalisation which attended the end of the Cold War has contributed more to the resurgence of ethnic and national conflicts than it has to international peace and stability.3 The social formations which are emerging out of the ferment of Soviet collapse are not characterised by democratic order and dynamic economic 'development', but by unstable parliamentary-authoritarian governments, considerable dependence on the IMF and World Bank and transnational capital, and growing 'ideological' and even 'cultural' subordination to the United States and Western Europe. While East Asia may be leaving the 'Third World' much of the former Soviet Bloc can be said to have (re)joined it.4 At the same time, the rise of East Asia, the demise of the 'Second World' and the onset of a new era of global capitalism, throws the problems associated with the continued use of the term 'Third World' into sharp relief. The term (along
TL;DR: The World Bank study of the high performing Asian economies has gotten many of the basic lessons right as mentioned in this paper, such as the emphasis on the export of manufactures, the maintenance of macroeconomic stability, and a low level of inequality that, among other things, led to an emphasis on primary and secondary rather than tertiary education.
TL;DR: Using the iterative intra-cohort interpolation procedure, the authors tried to remedy the lack of data on home-leaving by providing an international comparison of estimated census-based single-year age-specific net rates of leaving home for males and females in China, Japan, South Korea, United States, France, and Sweden.
Abstract: Using the iterative intra-cohort interpolation procedure, this article tries to remedy the lack of data on home-leaving by providing an international comparison of estimated census-based single-year age-specific net rates of leaving home for males and females in China, Japan, South Korea, United States, France, and Sweden. It demonstrates that large differences in the age pattern of leaving the parental home between the East Asian and the Western countries. For example, the median ages at home-leaving of males and females in the three East Asian countries studied were higher than those in the three Western countries studied by a margin of 2–3 years. The role played by social and cultural traditions as well as by ethnic ideologies in the large differences in the home-leaving pattern between the East Asian and Western countries is also considered.