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on South East Asia |
| By: | Philip Arestis; Guglielmo Maria Caporale; Andrea Cipollini; Nicola Spagnolo |
| Abstract: | In this paper we examine whether during the 1997 East Asian crisis there was any contagion from the four largest economies in the region (Thailand, Indonesia, Korea and Malaysia) to a number of developed countries (Japan, UK, Germany and France).Following Forbes and Rigobon (2002), we test for contagion as a significant positive shift in the correlation between asset returns, taking into account heteroscedasticity and endogeneity bias. Furthermore, we improve on earlier empirical studies by carrying out a full sample test of the stability of the system that relies on more plausible (over)identifying restrictions. The estimation results provide some evidence of contagion, in particular from Japan (the major international lender in the region), which drastically cut its credit lines to the other Asian countries in 1997. |
| Date: | 2005–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bru:bruedp:05-08&r=sea |
| By: | Guglielmo Maria Caporale; Luis A. Gil-Alana |
| Abstract: | In this article we estimate the order of integration of the volatility process of several exchange rates and stock returns using fractionally integrated semiparametric techniques,namely a local Whittle semiparametric estimator. The results suggest that all series can be well described in terms of I(d) statistical models, with values of d higher than 0, indicating long-memory behaviour. |
| Date: | 2005–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bru:bruedp:05-10&r=sea |
| By: | Ono, Hiroshi (European Institute of Japanese Studies) |
| Abstract: | I examine the extent and causes of digital inequality in the three countries of East Asia – Japan, South Korea and Singapore. I take advantage of individual-level microdata collected in the three countries between 1997 and 2000, and highlight differences in the socio-economic and demographic patterns of technology adoption, usage, and skills across countries and over time. Despite the high overall diffusion rates of information communication technologies (ICT) in all three countries, there remains a clear divide in access and use between various demographic groups. I find that household income, education and gender are the key determinants of digital inequality in all three countries, but there is sizeable variation in their magnitudes. In general, I find that inequality in ICT access, use and skills reflects pre-existing inequality in other areas of economy and society in the three countries. |
| Keywords: | Internet; computers; digital inequality |
| JEL: | J16 L86 N35 O33 |
| Date: | 2005–10–27 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:eijswp:0219&r=sea |
| By: | Toru Kubo |
| Date: | 2005–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hst:hstdps:d05-118&r=sea |
| By: | Daan Marks |
| Date: | 2005–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hst:hstdps:d05-119&r=sea |
| By: | Hak Kil Pyo; Bongchan Ha |
| Date: | 2005–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hst:hstdps:d05-120&r=sea |
| By: | Hans Fehr (University of Wuerzberg); Sabine Jokisch, (University of Wuerzberg); Laurence J. Kotlikoff (Boston University, National Bureau of Economic Research) |
| Abstract: | This paper develops a dynamic, life-cycle, general equilibrium model to study the interdependent demographic, fiscal, and economic transition paths of China, Japan, the U.S., and the EU. Each of these countries/regions is entering a period of rapid and significant aging that will require major fiscal adjustments. But the aging of these societies may be a cloud with a silver lining coming, in this case, in the form of capital deepening that will raise real wages. China eventually becomes the world’s saver and, thereby, the developed world’s savoir with respect to its long-run supply of capital and long-run general equilibrium prospects. And, rather than seeing the real wage per unit of human capital fall, the West and Japan see it rise by one fifth percent by 2030 and by three fifths by 2100. Even if the Chinese saving behavior gradually approaches that of Americans, developed world real wages per unit of human capital are roughly 17 percent higher in 2030 and 4 percent higher at the end of the century. Without China they’d be only 2 percent higher in 2030 and 4 percent lower at Century’s end. The short-run outflow of capital to China is met with a commensurate short-run reduction in developed world labor supply, leaving the short-run ratio of physical capital to human capital, on which wages positively depend, actually somewhat higher than would otherwise be the case. On the other hand, our findings about the developed world’s fiscal condition are quite troubling. Even under the most favorable macroeconomic scenario, tax rates will rise dramatically over time in the developed world to pay baby boomers their governmentpromised pension and health benefits. As Argentina has so recently shown, countries can grow quite well for years even with unsustainable fiscal policies. But if they wait too long to address those policies, the financial markets will do it for them, with often quite ruinous consequences. |
| Date: | 2005–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:mrr:papers:wp102&r=sea |
| By: | Martin D. D. Evans; Viktoria Hnatkovska |
| Abstract: | International capital flows have increased dramatically since the 1980s, with much of the increase being due to trade in equity and debt markets. Such developments are often attributed to the increased integration of world financial markets. We present a model that allows us to examine how greater integration in world financial markets affects the behavior of international capital flows and financial returns. Our model predicts that international capital flows are large (in absolute value) and very volatile during the early stages of financial integration when international asset trading is concentrated in bonds. As integration progresses and households gain access to world equity markets, the size and volatility of international bond flows fall dramatically but continue to exceed the size and volatility of international equity flows. This is the natural outcome of greater risk sharing facilitated by increased integration. We find that the equilibrium flows in bonds and stocks are larger than their empirical counterparts, and are largely driven by variations in equity risk premia. The paper also makes a methodological contribution to the literature on dynamic general equilibrium asset-pricing. We implement a new technique for solving a dynamic general equilibrium model with production, portfolio choice and incomplete markets. |
| JEL: | D52 F36 G11 |
| Date: | 2005–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:11701&r=sea |
| By: | William H. Branson; Conor N. Healy |
| Abstract: | This paper develops the basis for monetary and exchange rate coordination in Asia as part of a package of monetary integration that could support growth and poverty reduction. This could be achieved directly through coordinated exchange rate stabilization, and indirectly through the implications of this for reserve pooling and investment in an Asian development fund (ADF) and through development of the Asian bond market (ABM). Macro policy coordination could be viewed as a necessary condition for further development of both reserve pooling via the Chiang Mai Initiative (CMI) and of the ABM. The paper analyzes the trade structure of ASEAN and China in terms of both geographic sources of imports and markets for exports, and of the commodity structure of trade. The similarities of the geographic and commodity trade structures across the region are consistent with adoption of a common currency basket for stabilization, and with an argument for monetary integration across the region along the lines of Mundell (1961) on optimum currency areas. The paper constructs currency baskets and real effective exchange rates (REERs) for the countries in the region. Since their trade patterns are quite similar and their policies are already implicitly coordinated, their REERs tend to move together. This means that ASEAN and China are already moving toward integration in practical effect. Explicit movement toward coordination could support surveillance and reserve-sharing under the CMI, and release reserves to be invested in an ADF. |
| JEL: | F33 F41 G15 |
| Date: | 2005–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:11713&r=sea |
| By: | Michael Engman |
| Abstract: | This paper examines the economic impact of trade facilitation and in particular the link between trade facilitation and trade flows, government revenue and foreign direct investment. It is part of a series of studies that analyse various aspects of trade facilitation and the objective is to contribute to discussions in the WTO Negotiating Group on Trade Facilitation (NGTF) and elsewhere in the trade policy community. The paper finds that improved and simplified customs procedures would have a significant positive impact on trade flows. It further shows that a large number of mostly developing countries have managed to boost government revenue by implementing customs modernisation programmes that result in more efficient collection of trade taxes. In addition, the paper demonstrates that facilitated cross-border movement of goods would have a positive effect on the ability of a country to attract foreign direct investment and better integrate in international production supply chains. |
| Keywords: | foreign direct investment, customs, government revenue, trade facilitation, border procedures, trade flows, trade transaction costs |
| Date: | 2005–10–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:oec:traaab:21-en&r=sea |
| By: | Haider A Khan (Department of Economics, University of Denver) |
| Abstract: | This paper starts with an initial gesture accepting the validity of many of the criticisms of modernity by some leading postmodern thinkers. From this initial position, it then evaluates the postmodernist positions themselves with regards to democracy, women's empowerment and justice by paying careful attention to the arguments of these leading postmodernists. It then develops a theory of deep democracy and radical subjectivity which can be used to deconstruct the rhetoric of international organizations on women's empowerment. However, shallow and self-serving as this rhetoric is, it nevertheless can lead to a limited improvement in women's status contrary to the claims of the conservatives. Furthermore, the theory can also be used to de/reconstruct the liberal and social democratic positions on women's empowerment. Such a deep democratic perspective in South Asia focuses attention on enhancing social capabilities through all means, but most importantly through the political self-activities of the multitude---- particularly the radical subjectivities and actions of the most oppressed women who can and will increasingly take leading roles in overcoming the rule of global capital. |
| Date: | 2005–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:tky:fseres:2005cf386&r=sea |
| By: | Haider A Khan (Department of Economics, University of Denver) |
| Abstract: | The purpose of this paper is to analyze sustainability issues of Japan's fiscal policy and then to discuss the debt management policy using theoretical models and numerical studies. We also investigate the desirable coordination of fiscal and monetary authorities toward fiscal reconstruction. We include a potential possibilities of the government bonds in our theoretical model The public bonds, therefore, cannot be sold when the issuance leads the amount of debt outstanding to be more than a certain level. In this respect, the fiscal authority has to take into account the upper limit of stocks of public debt. This possibility of debt default provides the fiscal authority to issue public bonds strategically in an earlier period. A strategic behavior of fiscal authority induces the monetary authority, in a later period, to boost output and raise seigniorage revenues to eliminate the distortion of resource allocation due to the limitation on debt issuance. Therefore, the monetary policy in a later period suffers from an inflation bias from the ax ante point of view. There are two ways to eliminate this distortion toward successful fiscal reconstruction. One of them is to make the monetary authority more conservative than society in the sense that the price stability weight of monetary authority is higher than that of society. The other way of eliminating the distortion of the resource allocation is to design an institutional ceiling on the debt issuance. The direct ceiling can provide a binding constraint of the public bond issuance for the fiscal authority of Japan because it has accumulated the debt outstanding much more than other countries. |
| Date: | 2005–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:tky:fseres:2005cf387&r=sea |
| By: | Thomas I Palley |
| Abstract: | China’s development model faces an external constraint that could cause an economic hard landing. China has become a global manufacturing powerhouse, and its size now renders its export-led growth strategy unsustainable. China relies on the U.S. market, but the scale of its exports is contributing to the massive U.S. trade deficit, creating financial fragility and undermining the U.S. manufacturing sector. These developments could stall the U.S. economy’s expansion, in turn triggering a global recession that will embrace China. This is the external constraint. These considerations suggest China should transition from export-led growth to domestic demand-led growth. This requires growing the economy’s demand side as well as its supply-side. To avoid stalling the U.S. economic expansion, which is critical to China’s growth, China should significantly revalue its currency as part of a generalized East Asian upward currency revaluation. Longer term, China should raise wages and improve income distribution. Under export-led growth, higher wages undermine employment. Under domestic demand-led growth, they support it. The challenge is to raise wages in an efficient decentralized manner. History shows that this requires independent democratic trade unions. However, such unions are currently unacceptable to Chinese political leadership. Creating a domestic demand-led growth regime therefore requires solving this political roadblock. |
| Date: | 2005 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:uma:periwp:wp101&r=sea |
| By: | Mark Brenner; Matthew Riddle; James K. Boyce |
| Abstract: | The introduction of carbon charges on the use of fossil fuels in China would have a progressive impact on income distribution. This outcome, which contrasts to the regressive distributional impact found in most studies of carbon charges in industrialized countries, is driven primarily by differences between urban and rural expenditure patterns. If carbon revenues were recycled on an equal per capita basis via a ‘sky trust,’ the progressive impact would be further enhanced: low-income (mainly rural) households would receive more in sky-trust dividends than they pay in carbon charges, and high-income (mainly urban) households would pay more than they receive in dividends. Thus a Chinese sky trust would contribute to both lower fossil fuel consumption and greater income equality. |
| Date: | 2005 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:uma:periwp:wp97&r=sea |
| By: | Chen Pu (Bielefeld University); Hsiao Chihying (Bielefeld University) |
| Abstract: | Many economic professionals like financial analysts, economic journalists and regulatory officers prevailingly regard the fast growth of the Chinese economy as the key factor that leads recently the Japanese economy to recover from the recession that started since beginning of the nineties. This judgement are mostly underpinned by statistical facts that the Chinese economy grew fast in the last two years; the Japanese export to China has experienced a dramatically increase during last two years, China has become now the biggest foreign trade partner of Japan and so on. However, this convincingly sounding arguments are not sufficient to conclude the statement that the Chinese growth leads Japan out of the recession. In fact the statement has essentially a causal character, which means both the interdependence and the directionality of the dependence. While the positive dependence/correlation between the Chinese economy and the Japanese economy is often explicitly documented by statistical facts, arguments about the directionality of the dependence are totally missing. In this paper we conduct an empirical study to investigate the directionality of the dependence in order to justify the statement empirically. Taking a probabilistic causal approach, we infer the causal dependence among the Japanese economy and the Chinese economy based on observed data. We find the evidence that the Chinese growth on average has been a positive cause of the Japanese since the later nineties and the temporary positive casual effect is even more pronounced. |
| Keywords: | Inferred Causality, Recovery of the Japanese economy, China Japan relation |
| JEL: | C1 F4 F4 |
| Date: | 2005–10–29 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wpa:wuwpem:0510005&r=sea |
| By: | John Gibson (University of Canterbury); Sandra Barns; Michael Cameron; Steven Lim; Frank Scrimgeour; John Tressler |
| Abstract: | This paper presents estimates of the Value of Statistical Life (VSL) in rural Thailand using the contingent-valuation (CV) method. These estimates are applied to an economic analysis of landmine clearance. The estimated VSL of US$250,000 suggests that the value of lives saved from landmine clearance is at least an order of magnitude greater than the values used in existing studies. |
| Keywords: | Asia; Thailand; benefit-cost analysis; contingent valuation; landmines; value of statistical life |
| JEL: | J17 O22 |
| Date: | 2005–04–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cbt:econwp:05/04&r=sea |