East Asia

About: East Asia is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 17591 publications have been published within this topic receiving 274073 citations. The topic is also known as: Eastern Asia.

Simulated change of the east Asian circulation under global warming scenario

Abstract: [1] Changes in east Asian circulation pattern are investigated by the most recent versions of coupled climate models, one a high resolution version of the CCSR/NIES/FRCGC model and the other an ensemble of 17 state-of-the-art models made available by the international modeling community. These recent model results appear to give more credence to the following aspects: weakened winter monsoon associated with the shallower and northeastward shifted planetary wave trough over the east coast of the Eurasian Continent and increased activity of east Asian monsoonal rain band in summer associated with the strengthening of anticyclonic cells to its south and north.

Food Prices, Quality, and Quality's Pricing in Supermarkets versus Traditional Markets in Developing Countries

Abstract: Supermarkets are spreading rapidly in developing countries. The diffusion is occurring in three "waves." The first wave was in South America, East Asia (outside China), and South Africa, "taking off" in the early 1990s; the share of supermarkets in food retail went from roughly 10-20% in 1990 to 50-60% today. The second wave was in Central America, Mexico, and Southeast Asia, taking off in the mid 1990s, and reaching 30-50% today. The third wave was in China, India, Vietnam, parts of Africa such as Kenya, taking off in the late 1990s to early 2000s, reaching 1-20% today (Reardon et al.). There is a late third and even fourth wave just emerging in parts of South Asia and Africa where supermarkets are still a tiny niche (Reardon and Timmer), such as in Madagascar (Minten). As supermarkets diffused and competed over the past decade, they have gradually adopted procurement system modernization, such as buying in bulk to lower costs and thus offer competitive prices, and imposing private standards to raise quality (Reardon and Timmer). There has, however, been no review of emerging evidence of whether supermarkets charge higher or lower food prices or offer higher quality than traditional retailers with whom they compete, and what price they charge for that quality differential if it exists. This article addresses this gap first by reviewing emerging evidence on supermarket-traditional retailer price and quality differentials, and then focusing in on a "late third-wave" case study (of

Trade Integration and Business Cycle Synchronization in East Asia

Abstract: As trade integration deepens in East Asia, closer links among the business cycles of East Asian countries can be expected. Theoretically, however, increased trade could lead to either closer or looser business cycles across trading partners. This paper seeks to understand how the business cycles of 12 Asian economies have been influenced by increased trade among them. It finds that the increasing trade itself is not necessarily associated with an increased synchronization of their business cycles. Intra-industry trade, rather than inter-industry trade or the volume of trade itself, is the major channel through which their business cycles become synchronized. This result has important implications for the prospects for a unified currency in the region.

Governing the market in a globalizing era: Developmental states, global production networks and inter-firm dynamics in East Asia

Abstract: This paper focuses on the changing governance of economic development in a globalizing era in relation to the dynamics of global value chains and global production networks. Based on recent development in such East Asian economies as South Korea, Taiwan and Singapore, I examine how, since the 1990s, the embedded relation between one variant of state institutions, known as the developmental state, and national firms, well integrated into global chains and networks spanning different territories and regions, has evolved. Because of the deepening strategic coupling of these national firms with lead firms in global industries, the developmental state's attempt to govern the market and to steer industrial transformation through direct policy interventions has become increasingly difficult and problematic. Through this process of strategic coupling, national firms have been gradually disembedded from state apparatuses and re-embedded in different global production networks that are governed by competiti...

Education Fever and the East Asian Fertility Puzzle: A case study of low fertility in South Korea

Abstract: Fertility throughout East Asia has fallen rapidly over the last five decades and is now below the replacement rate of 2.1 in every country in the region. Using South Korea as a case study, we argue that East Asia's ultra-low fertility rates can be partially explained by the steadfast parental drive to have competitive and successful children. Parents throughout the region invest large amounts of time and money to ensure that their children are able to enter prestigious universities and obtain top jobs. Accordingly, childrearing has become so expensive that the average couple cannot afford to have more than just one or two children. The trend of high parental investment in child education, also known as ‘education fever’, exemplifies the notion of ‘quality over quantity’ and is an important contributing factor to understanding low-fertility in East Asia.