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Begin New Search Topic Globalization Political Geography Asia Content Type Working Paper Publication Year within 10 Years

1. China’s Development Path: Government, Business, and Globalization in an Innovating Economy

Author:
Yin Yi and William Lazonick
Publication Date:
08-2022
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Institute for New Economic Thinking (INET)
Abstract:
We employ the “social conditions of innovative enterprise” framework to analyze the key determinants of China’s development path from the economic reforms of 1978 to the present. First, we focus on how government investments in human capabilities and physical infrastructure provided foundational support for the emergence of Chinese enterprises capable of technological learning. Second, we delve into the main modes by which Chinese firms engaged in technological learning from abroad—joint ventures with foreign multinationals, global value chains, and experienced high-tech returnees—that have contributed to industrial development in China. Third, we provide evidence on achievements in indigenous innovation—by which we mean improvements in national productive capabilities that build on learning from abroad and enable the innovating firms to engage in global competition—in the computer, automobile, communication-technology, and semiconductor-fabrication industries. Finally, we sketch out the implications of our approach for current debates on the role of innovation in China’s development path as it continues to unfold.
Topic:
Development, Economics, Globalization, Infrastructure, Hegemony, and Innovation
Political Geography:
China and Asia

2. Economic Zones and Local Income Inequality: Evidence from Indonesia

Author:
Cecília Hornok and Sidan Raeskyesa
Publication Date:
06-2022
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW)
Abstract:
Economic zones can be powerful drivers of economic growth in developing countries. However, less is known about their distributional impact on the local society. This paper provides empirical evidence from Indonesian provinces on the relationship between economic zones and within-province income inequality. Estimates from panel regressions and synthetic control case studies suggest that this relationship is positive overall. The estimated rise in income inequality after a zone opens is relatively small on average and may be short-lived. However, the average estimate masks large regional differences, which suggests that the inequality implications of economic zone policies depend on local conditions. One explanation for the rise in inequality is that the unskilled population benefits disproportionately less from the policy. As a remedy, we propose education and training programs that target the poor and unskilled and in which companies also actively participate.
Topic:
Economics, Emerging Markets, Globalization, Economic Growth, and Income Distribution
Political Geography:
Indonesia, Asia, and Southeast Asia

3. Brothers in arms: The value of coalitions in sanctions regimes

Author:
Sonali Chowdhry, Julian Hinz, Katrin Kamin, and Joschka Wanner
Publication Date:
10-2022
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW)
Abstract:
This paper examines the impact of coalitions on the economic costs of the 2012 Iran and 2014 Russia sanctions. By estimating and simulating a quantitative general equilibrium trade model under different coalition set-ups, we (i) dissect welfare losses for sanction-senders and target; (ii) compare prospective coalition partners and; (iii) provide bounds for the sanctions potential — the maximum welfare change attainable — when sanctions are scaled vertically, i.e. across sectors up to an embargo, or horizontally, i.e. across countries up to a global regime. To gauge the significance of simulation outcomes, we implement a Bayesian bootstrap procedure that generates confidence bands. We find that the implemented measures against Iran and Russia inflicted considerable economic harm, yielding 32 – 37% of the vertical sanctions potential. Our key finding is that coalitions lower the average welfare loss incurred from sanctions relative to unilateral implementation. They also increase the welfare loss imposed on Iran and Russia. Adding China to the coalition further amplifies the welfare loss by 79% for Iran and 22% for Russia. Finally, we quantify transfers that would equalize losses across coalition members. These hypothetical transfers can be seen as a sanctions-equivalent of NATO spending goals and provide a measure of the relative burden borne by coalition countries.
Topic:
Globalization, International Trade and Finance, Markets, Sanctions, Alliance, and Embargo
Political Geography:
Russia, China, Europe, Asia, North America, and United States of America

4. The Economic Impact of Globalisation in Indonesia

Author:
Kiki Verico and Mari Pangestu
Publication Date:
08-2020
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Economic Research Institute for ASEAN and East Asia (ERIA)
Abstract:
This paper analyses the economic impact of globalisation in Indonesia from the end of the 1960s to date. The analysis found that globalisation generated a positive impact on Indonesia’s economic growth through the trade and investment channel; reduced wage inequality and child labour participation; and increased labour absorption, including women's participation in the labour market. Through the trade channel, globalisation also contributed to Indonesia’s productivity and structural economic transformation, benefited small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), contributed to poverty alleviation and reduced inequality, and increased trade in services such as tourism. Through the investment channel, there is evidence of the spillover effect of technology transfer, technology progress, improvement of the role of SMEs, and contribution to poverty alleviation. The waves of open and more restrictive trade and investment policies, which Indonesia has gone through in the last few decades, reflect the political economy reality – that is, the impact of globalisation is dynamic and only felt in the medium term, whereas the cost and potential negative impact is often felt more immediately throughout trade creation. The trade creation increases imports from countries with which free trade agreements have been negotiated, decreasing the domestic producer surplus. Since globalisation will create net benefits in the long run, Indonesia should continue its process of globalisation and integration with the world economy to ensure the net benefits and to move forward in its structural transformation, while managing the costs of globalisation and its transition process.
Topic:
Globalization, International Cooperation, International Trade and Finance, and Economic Growth
Political Geography:
Indonesia, Asia, and Indo-Pacific

5. China’s BRI: The Development-Finance Dimension

Author:
David Gordon and Haoyu Tong
Publication Date:
03-2020
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
International Institute for Strategic Studies
Abstract:
This report is the first of two synthesising the findings of a major research workshop convened in Washington DC on 26 June 2019, by The International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS), as part of its multi-year project on China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). The IISS commissioned ten papers that addressed development-finance and security issues in the BRI, prepared by leading scholars and policy practitioners. They were joined at the workshop by more than two dozen other experts on China’s international behaviour. This first report focuses on development-finance issues in the BRI; the second will address security issues broadly cast. China’s Belt and Road Initiative is now six years old. Announced by (then) newly ensconced President Xi Jinping, it has since become the centrepiece of Xi’s ambitious drive to make China a more active global leader, and to break free from the cautious approach set out more than 30 years earlier by then-paramount-leader Deng Xiaoping – that China’s strategic approach should be to ‘hide its capacities and bide its time’. At the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) 19th Congress in 2017, the BRI was integrated into the party’s charter. Much of the early analytical work on the BRI has focused on questions surrounding China’s motivations – economic or geopolitical. Is Xi’s initiative a response to changing domestic economic circumstances? Or does it signal evidence of China’s intent to build a twentyfirst- century imperium modelled on the post-war United States-led experience, more than on European colonial or earlier Asian empires? The emerging consensus on this question is that it has been a bit of both. At the same time, an often overlooked factor is Xi’s constant need to further consolidate his power inside China, as the economics versus geopolitics debate about the motivations for the BRI gives too little attention to the more purely political dimension. The BRI cannot be separated from Xi’s efforts to cast himself domestically as an exceptional leader for an exceptional moment in China’s history.
Topic:
Development, Globalization, Infrastructure, Hegemony, and Belt and Road Initiative (BRI)
Political Geography:
China and Asia

6. China in One Country: interdependence or globalisation 'with Chinese characteristics'?

Author:
George Magnus
Publication Date:
07-2020
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
LSE IDEAS
Abstract:
Globalisation has faltered, and faces significant political challenges. In both the US and China, voices are calling for a reduction of economic interdependence between the two countries. In the US, this has taken the name of decoupling, in China, self-reliance. At the same time, China’s President, Xi Jinping has vocally championed globalisation in various global fora in recent years. Understanding of China’s systems of government and business, as well as its global interests, is lacking when compared to that of the US. In this Strategic Update, George Magnus investigates what is meant when China’s leadership speaks of globalisation, and what the implications of the answer are for the rest of the world.
Topic:
Foreign Policy, Economics, Globalization, and Leadership
Political Geography:
China, Asia, and United States of America

7. A Spark Beyond Time and Place: Ogawa Shinsuke and Asia

Author:
Tamako Akiyama
Publication Date:
08-2019
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Economic Research Institute for ASEAN and East Asia (ERIA)
Abstract:
One of the most important documentary film-makers of the post-war period, Ogawa Shinsuke, had an enormous impact on film-makers across Asia. This paper will unpack some of the paradox-filled processes by which his influence spread across the Asian film-making world through an analysis of interviews, film festival records, and the role of translation during his lifetime (1936–1992). Energised by an increasing interest in mentoring young Asian film-makers in his later years, and having created a platform for the exchange of films and ideas through the first documentary film festival in Asia in the late 1980s, Ogawa continued to offer a kind of spiritual orientation to other film-makers in translation even after his death. This paper will examine how this process was not merely a result of Ogawa’s own efforts but realised through a series of interwoven yet contradictory social, economic, and interpersonal histories. Amidst the call for a greater exchange of media within and beyond Japan, the circulation across Asia of Ogawa’s cultural capital offers an opportunity to think about the significance of the various ‘investments’ that form such capital, and poses important issues for considering the conditions under which it can continue to survive.
Topic:
Globalization, Culture, and Media
Political Geography:
Japan and Asia

8. In the Closet: Japanese Creative Industries and their Reluctance to Forge Global and Transnational Linkages in ASEAN and East Asia

Author:
Shinji Oyama
Publication Date:
08-2019
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Economic Research Institute for ASEAN and East Asia (ERIA)
Abstract:
This paper addresses rarely asked questions: is Cool Japan a creative industries policy and, if so, what kind of creative industries policy is it? It addresses these questions by examining Cool Japan’s differences from the UK derived and globally very influential creative industries model. The paper will try to make sense of these differences by looking at how the Japanese creative industries comprise businesses of different sizes with a varied history and prestige, how those companies have complex and contrasting relationships with various state organisations, and how the forces of globalisation and its free-market and neo-liberal economic ideologies affect companies in various sectors differently. This will challenge the dominant narrative of Japanese Creative Industries and Cool Japan in which, it is generally believed, the former embraces globalisation and digitalisation, and the latter is responsible for broadening the appeal of Japanese popular culture abroad. This paper reveals the complexity and diversity of the creative industries from socio-cultural and politico-economic perspectives often overlooked in the Cool Japan discourse.
Topic:
Globalization, International Cooperation, transnationalism, and Industry
Political Geography:
Asia

9. The Impact of Economic Globalisation on Firm Performance and the Labour Market: Evidence from Japan

Author:
Keiko Ito
Publication Date:
10-2019
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Economic Research Institute for ASEAN and East Asia (ERIA)
Abstract:
This paper summarises the major findings and arguments in the literature on the impact of globalisation on firm performance and the labour market, focusing on the case of Japan. Internationalised firms show better performance. Although offshoring has shifted labour demand towards skilled workers, thedirect contribution of globalisation to the widening wage gap is quite limited. The empirical evidence for Japan is more or less consistent with that for other developed countries, but some observations on Japan are worth pointing out. First, several empirical studies confirm a learning-by-exporting effect. Second, there is no strong evidence that increases in imports from China have reduced domestic employment. Increases in imports from China have a positive effect on value added growth in downstream industries, implying that imports from China are likely to be complementary to domestic production in Japan.
Topic:
Globalization, Industrial Policy, Labor Issues, Exports, and Imports
Political Geography:
Japan, China, and Asia

10. Globalisation and Economic Development: Malaysia's Experience

Author:
Cassey Lee
Publication Date:
12-2019
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Economic Research Institute for ASEAN and East Asia (ERIA)
Abstract:
The economic development of Malaysia has been strongly driven and shaped by globalisation, from the pre-colonial to the post-independence period. The country has harnessed trade, foreign capital, and foreign labour to grow and has transformed its economy from one that was highly dependent on primary commodities (tin and rubber) into one driven by manufactured exports. The impact of globalisation on the Malaysian economy has changed through the various phases of its development experience. The early phases of the country’s engagement with globalisation reduced poverty and inequality. In later stages, excessive dependence on low-skilled foreign labour, although beneficial initially, may have compromised the competitiveness of the economy. Malaysia’s multi-ethnic society has also posed considerable challenges in the balancing of domestic needs and benefits with greater engagement with globalisation. The openness of the Malaysian economy has also made it vulnerable to global economic shocks.
Topic:
Globalization, International Trade and Finance, Inequality, and Economic Development
Political Geography:
Malaysia and Asia