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Begin New Search Topic Emerging Markets Political Geography Asia Content Type Working Paper Publishing Institution United Nations University

1. Thailand's Development Strategy and Growth Performance

Author:
Peter Warr
Publication Date:
01-2011
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
United Nations University
Abstract:
Thailand's development strategy has been strongly market-oriented and open to trade and investment flows with the rest of the world. Since the late 1950s, its growth performance has been outstanding. Poverty incidence has declined dramatically, but economic inequality has increased. Economic progress has been reflected in very significant improvement in non-economic indicators of well-being such as life expectancy, infant and maternal morality, and literacy. Nevertheless, the performance of the education system is chronically poor. Environmental problems and institutional failures in resource management are ongoing. Reform is needed in several areas, including political and corporate governance, regulation of industry, and in the education and health systems.
Topic:
Development, Economics, Education, Emerging Markets, Poverty, and Foreign Direct Investment
Political Geography:
Asia and Southeast Asia

2. Output and Price Fluctuations in China's Reform Years: What Role did Money Play?

Author:
Guanghua Wan and Yin Zhang
Publication Date:
08-2004
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
United Nations University
Abstract:
The Chinese economy underwent cyclical fluctuations in growth and inflation in the reform period. Contrasting views exist on the role of money in such fluctuations. This paper assesses these views employing structural VEC models based on the exchange equation. It is found that in the long run money accommodates, rather than causes, changes in output and prices. In the short run, price fluctuations are mostly attributable to shocks that have permanent effects on prices and money but not on real output. These shocks also account for a large proportion of fluctuations in money, and strongly influence the movements of output.
Topic:
Economics, Emerging Markets, and International Trade and Finance
Political Geography:
China and Asia

3. What Accounts for China's Trade Balance Dynamics?

Author:
Guanghua Wan and Yin Zhang
Publication Date:
08-2004
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
United Nations University
Abstract:
This paper proposes a structural VAR model which extends the frameworks of Hoffmaister and Roldós (2001) and Prasad (1999). The model is then used to analyse the sources of China's trade balance fluctuations in the period of 1985–2000. Efforts are made to distinguish the forces which underlie the long-run trend in trade balance from those with transitory impacts. The effects of four types of shock are examined—the foreign supply shock, the domestic supply shock, the relative demand shock, and the nominal shock. Among other findings, two emerge as important. First, the movements in China's trade are largely the result of real shocks. Second, the Renminbi is undervalued, yet changes in the exchange rate bear little on the trade balance. Therefore, monetary measures would not suffice to redress China's trade 'imbalance'.
Topic:
Economics, Emerging Markets, and International Trade and Finance
Political Geography:
China and Asia

4. International Bank Lending. Water Flowing Uphill?

Author:
John Hawkins
Publication Date:
04-2002
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
United Nations University
Abstract:
International bank lending is a major component of capital flows between advanced and emerging economies. However, in recent years these flows have been going the wrong way, like water flowing uphill. Even four years after the Asian crisis, there is a net flow of funds from emerging economies to banks in advanced economies. This paper looks at this phenomenon, starting by setting out the relevant data, and then looking at factors influencing these flows. These include both cyclical influences (both 'push' and 'pull') and structural changes within the banking industry. There is some evidence that international lenders are now discriminating more between the various emerging economies.
Topic:
Economics, Emerging Markets, and International Trade and Finance
Political Geography:
Asia

5. From the Grabbing Hand to the Helping Hand: A Rent Seeking Model of China's Township-Village Enterprises

Author:
Jiahua Che
Publication Date:
01-2002
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
United Nations University
Abstract:
I present a study of ownership of firms under government rent seeking. Using its control of regulated inputs, a government agency extracts rents from a manager who undertakes an investment. Such a government rent seeking activity leads to a typical hold-up problem. Government ownership is shown to serve as a second best commitment mechanism through which the government agency will restrain itself from the rent seeking activity and even offer the manager support and favor such as tax breaks and subsidies. This mechanism works at a cost as government ownership compromises ex post managerial incentives and creates distortion in resource allocation. Nevertheless, government ownership may Pareto dominate private ownership under certain conditions. These conditions correspond to a host of stylized empirical observations concerning local government-owned firms (township-village enterprises) during China's transition to a market economy.
Topic:
Development, Emerging Markets, and Government
Political Geography:
China and Asia

6. IMF Model and Resource-Abundant Transition Economies: Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan

Author:
Richard M. Auty
Publication Date:
11-1999
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
United Nations University
Abstract:
The IMF model of the economic transition stresses the role of macro policy reform. It concludes that rapid reform to a market economy is preferable to slow reform because late reformers experience very steep transition recessions and severe contractions in government revenues. However, the predictive power of the IMF model has weakened through the late-1990s. This is because it under-estimates the role of initial conditions that include the natural resource endowment as well as institutional capital and the legacy of produced capital. This paper demonstrates how the predictive power of the IMF model can be improved by taking account of the impact of natural resource abundance for the transition. Resource abundance can feed corruption and diminish the urgency of reform, thereby intensifying the adverse effect of a retarded transition. It can also amplify the contraction of the non-booming tradeable sector due to Dutch disease effects. These adverse features are likely to be more severe where the resource endowment creates point source socio-economic linkages, as in mining, as opposed to the diffuse linkages associated with crop production by yeoman farmers. The detrimental effects of resource abundance are also likely to be more severe where institutional capital is deficient. Consistent with such a resource-constrained variant of the IMF model; resource-abundant Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan both delayed their reforms and both exhibit high levels of corruption relative to the transition economies as a whole. Also, economic recovery in Kazakhstan is slower than the original IMF model predicts because investment in minerals strengthened the exchange rate and retarded economic diversification. In the case of Uzbekistan, a natural resource endowment that yielded especially buoyant crop revenues (that eased the foreign exchange constraint) helps to explain why the growth collapse is less than the unadjusted IMF model predicts for such a slow reformer. This explanation is still too simple, however. Uzbekistan also benefits from robust social capital and limited obsolete industry, both of which retard the decline in government revenue. Finally, the resource-constrained IMF model suggests that the Uzbek policy of gradual reform represses exports and intensifies economic distortions. This will lock the economy into a staple trap and lead to a growth collapse, as the experience of many resource-abundant developing market economies testifies
Topic:
Emerging Markets, Environment, and International Organization
Political Geography:
Kazakhstan, Asia, Uzbekistan, and Dutch