Introduction: the icarus paradox in Korean business and management

Some writers argue that modern history reveals that countries pass through ‘cycles’ in economic leadership. The ‘forerunners’ of industrialization used inventions and innovations as the major sources of their growth. On the other hand, newly industrializing countries, labelled ‘latecomers’ vis-à-vis the first groups, relied more on imitating, borrowing, or learning advanced technological and organizational capabilities to achieve national industrialization and eventually to gain national competitiveness. For some time, many have viewed such economies, especially the ‘Asian Tigers’, as a major force that will lead future world economic growth. However, such expectations have diminished with the recent financial crisis and contagion in Asia. The subject matter covered here includes the sources of economic growth and industrialization, the ‘catch-up’ strategies of firms, and foreign investment. The causes of the recent financial crisis, and future possibilities for the Korean model of business and management, are also analysed.     

Global Volatility and Forex Returns in East Asia*

During 2001–2010, increases in mature market volatility were associated with declines in forex returns for East Asian economies, consistent with an overall ‘flight to safety’ effect. Estimates from GARCH models suggest that a 10 percentage point increase in mature market equity volatility generated an exchange rate depreciation of up to 3/4 percent. This sensitivity rose during a more tranquil subsample for some countries, reflecting their greater integration with global financial markets. Long‐run forex volatility increased in Asian economies after 2008, reflecting the global reach of the financial crisis in mature markets. Unconditional standard deviations estimated from these models provide operational measures of ‘long‐term’ and ‘excess’ volatility in forex markets.     

Global financial conditions,country spreads and macroeconomic fluctuations in emerging countries

This paper uses a panel structural vector autoregressive (VAR) model to investigate the extent to which global financial conditions, i.e., a global risk-free interest rate and global financial risk, and country spreads contribute to macroeconomic fluctuations in emerging countries. The main findings are: (1) global financial risk shocks explain about 20% of movements both in the country spread and in the aggregate activity in emerging economies. (2) The contribution of global risk-free interest rate shocks to macroeconomic fluctuations in emerging economies is negligible. Its role, which was emphasized in the literature, is taken up by global financial risk shocks. (3) Country spread shocks explain about 15 percent of the business cycles in emerging economies. (4) Interdependence between economic activity and the country spread is a key mechanism through which global financial shocks are transmitted to emerging economies.     

The Asian economy: current state of play and future prospects

The global financial crisis, the so-called great world recession and recovery have had a serious impact on the Asian and global economies. Together, they managed to engender significant transformation in the contours of both the Asian and global economies. For instance, Asian economies presently depend less on markets in the advanced industrial economies and, due to their enlarging markets, can and did make a substantive contribution to the global recovery. They spearheaded the economic recovery from the global financial crisis. The post-crisis Asian economy is the third pole of the global economy. Significantly, the emerging market economies of Asia did not magnify the external shock this time and performed more like the advanced industrial economies. After a robust recovery in 2010, growth became somewhat subdued in 2011. Projections show that economic performance in the region in 2012 will not be very different from that in 2011 (see WB [World Bank] 2012).     

Openness and growth: an interpretation of empirical evidence from East Asian countries

This study investigates the effect of openness on economic growth for rapidly growing economies in East Asia in which rapid growth has been accompanied by a persistent openness to world trade. The framework of analysis is a five-variable vector autoregressive model that consists of real output, money supply, real government spending, foreign price shocks, and openness measures. The results do not strongly support the 'new' growth theories in which increasing openness affects long-run growth. For most countries in the sample, fiscal policy shocks as well as foreign price shocks have greater impacts on economic growth than does the openness shock. The results are generally consistent with the view that the role of the government is critical for growth among the East Asian economies.     

疫情背景下的全球变局和亚洲经贸合作

国际金融危机以来,世界经济格局东升西降趋势显著。亚洲经济在全球经济中的地位不断上升,特别是新冠肺炎疫情之下,东亚经济率先复苏,已成为世界经济重心。亚洲始终是中国经略周边外交的重点地区,如何经略好这一地区,积极营造繁荣稳定的周边环境和发展机遇期,对中国塑造发展全球伙伴关系和深化同周边国家的关系具有重要现实意义,有助于发挥中国作为大国领导力和提升国际影响力。特别是在中美贸易摩擦加剧、新冠肺炎疫情全球大流行背景下,探讨分析亚洲经济发展的战略和政策动向,探索亚洲经贸合作的新思路新路径,对赢得中美战略博弈主动、推动高质量发展具有特殊意义,也有利于推动区域各国加强互信互利合作和维护亚洲稳定繁荣。自贸区战略已成为大国竞争的战略制高点之一,提高自由贸易区标准和质量是大势所趋。分析各区域经贸协定、亚洲产业链转移趋势及对中国的机遇和挑战,有助于未雨绸缪,早有预案,争取主动。在分析这些重大问题的基础上提出亚洲经贸合作发展中亟需解决的重大问题与合作的新思路,给出中国方案和建议。     

东亚经济冲击对称性分析与东亚货币合作

经济冲击的对称性程度,是判断一组经济体是否可以进行货币合作的一个良好指标。本文在前人研究的基础上,对经济冲击的分解变量进行了重新选择,将东亚9个经济体的经济冲击分解为供给冲击、需求冲击和货币冲击。静态与动态实证结果都显示东亚目前的冲击对称性程度还不高。未来东亚货币合作的方向,除了在整体上继续推动东亚各经济体在各领域的合作外,重点是要推进大国之间的经济合作与协调。     

What does the Bank of Japan do to East Asia?

In recent policy debates some have argued that expansionary monetary policy in Japan can increase real output in Japan and in Japan's neighbors, while others have warned that it is a beggar-thy-neighbor policy. In this paper we estimate structural vector autoregressions to assess the effects of Japanese monetary policy shocks. We find that the effects of Japanese monetary policy shocks on macroeconomic variation in East Asia have been modest and difficult to reconcile with the beggar-thy-neighbor view. We estimate that the Asian crisis was preceded by expansionary monetary policy shocks in Japan, but we fail to find support for the view that these shocks contributed to the crisis.     

India and the Impossible Trinity

In the 1990s, India responded to the well‐known trilemma of macroeconomic policy by adopting an intermediate exchange rate system combined with selective capital controls. This regime enabled the country to balance exchange rate stability, exchange rate targeting and monetary autonomy, and to weather successfully various shocks that included contagion from the East Asian crisis. India's experience serves to reinforce doubts about the desirability of bipolar exchange rate regimes for developing countries as an integral element of a new international financial architecture.     

Is the Yen/Dollar Exchange Rate Really Responsible for East Asia's Export and Business Cycles? A Commentary on McKinnon and Schnabl (2003)

In a paper published in The World Economy, Ronald McKinnon and Gunther Schnabl claim that fluctuations in the nominal yen/dollar exchange rate are the principal causal factor behind the export and business cycles in East Asian countries ( McKinnon and Schnabl, 2003 ). Their econometric work, however, suffers from at least two important difficulties. First, while McKinnon and Schnabl preclude industry shocks as an explanation for the East Asian countries’ macroeconomic fluctuations, cyclical fluctuations in the global electronics industry have a significant impact on their short‐run export and output dynamics. Second, although McKinnon and Schnabl assume that the relative industrial competitiveness of Japan and other East Asian countries moves in tandem with fluctuations in the nominal yen/dollar exchange rate, the empirical validity of this assumption is not indisputable. Once these two issues are taken into account properly, it becomes very difficult to make a convincing case for the yen/dollar exchange rate being the main driver of East Asia's macroeconomic instability. A brief critique will also be made of another paper that has appeared recently in The World Economy ( Doraisami, 2004 ), which models Malaysia's pre‐crisis export dynamics using the nominal yen/dollar exchange rate as a proxy for the country's export competitiveness.     

FDI,Growth and the Asian Financial Crisis: The Experience of Selected Asian Countries

This paper studies the trends in foreign direct investment (FDI) flows into selected South‐East Asian and East Asian economies after the Asian crisis. Empirical evidence indicates that South‐East and East Asian economies are recovering from the Asian crisis with strong output growth driven largely by export growth. However, output growth in the post‐crisis period is also accompanied by rising unemployment rates, growing government deficits, and declining FDI inflows into the South‐East Asian region. The declining FDI inflows into South‐East Asia after the crisis is of concern, as our empirical results show that FDI is important for output growth in the region. Our results also suggest that there might have been structural changes in the regional economies that could have led to a downward shift in the output growth of Asian economies in the post‐crisis period. This raises the issue of the sustainability of their output growth in the post‐crisis period.     

An Asian Currency Unit: Simulations for Its Effects on East Asia

An Asian currency unit (ACU) is necessary to deepen Asian financial markets and to convert national currencies into a single monetary policy. However, the experiences of the European Currency Unit and the European Exchange Rate Mechanism crisis in 1992–93 have indicated the danger of the so‐called gradual approach. This study evaluates the effects of welfare should the ACU indicator become a long‐term constraint of the People's Republic of China and Japan, the big two in East Asia. Our results indicate that the constraints of countries’ own baskets (e.g. real effective exchange rates) are still better before the launch of a true single currency. That is, pegging to an ACU indicator could hardly be sustained in the long‐run if East Asian countries have not reached a consensus about a regional monetary union.     

Real Output Co‐movements in East Asia: Any Evidence for a Monetary Union?

The East Asian region has experienced astonishing economic growth and integration over the past few decades. It is generally believed that a high degree of integration in the region would greatly shape the economic structure of each individual economy and has direct implications for the effectiveness of domestic stabilisation policy and policy coordination. This paper empirically examines the feasibility of forming a monetary union in East Asia by assessing the real output co‐movements among these economies. As suggested by the optimum currency area (OCA) theory that losing monetary independence would be the major cost for adopting a common currency, it would be less costly for the economies to form a monetary union if the business cycles are synchronised across countries. The cointegration test and the Vahid and Engle (1993 ) test for common business cycles are conducted to examine their long‐run relationship and short‐run interactions in real outputs, respectively. Our study found that some pair countries in the region share both the long‐run and short‐run synchronous movements of the real outputs. In particular, the short‐run common business cycles are found in some pairs of ASEAN economies consisting of Singapore, Thailand and Indonesia, and in the Northeast Asian region consisting of Hong Kong, Korea and Mainland China, as well as between Japan and Taiwan. These findings have important implications for the economies in terms of adjustment costs when considering the adoption of a monetary union.     

Labour Migration and Economic Growth in East and South‐East Asia

East and South‐East Asia will face major demographic changes over the next few decades with many countries’ labour forces starting to decline, while others experience higher labour force growth as populations and/or participation rates increase. A well‐managed labour migration strategy presents itself as a mechanism for ameliorating the impending labour shortages in some East Asia–Pacific countries, while providing an opportunity for other countries with excess labour to provide migrant workers who will contribute to the development of the home country through greater remittance flows. This paper examines such migration policy options using a global dynamic economic simulation approach and finds that allowing migrants to respond to the major demographic changes occurring in Asia over the next 50 years would be beneficial to most economies in the region in terms of real incomes and real GDP over the 2007–50 period. Such a policy could deeply affect the net migration position of a country. Countries that were net recipients under current migration policies might become net senders under the more liberal policy regime.     

Trade Policies in Southeast Asia in the Wider Asian Perspective

This paper takes stock of trade policies in Southeast Asia after the Asian crisis and in the wake of the current global economic crisis. It compares trade policies in individual Southeast Asian countries; places them in the context of regional and global economic integration; and particularly draws implications for the region from the rise of China and India. The first section looks at recent trade and FDI patterns in Southeast Asia. Then follows an overview of key trade‐policy trends, in the region overall and in individual countries. The next sections examine ASEAN countries in international trade negotiations and agreements: first in the WTO, especially in the Doha Round; then within ASEAN; and finally on cross‐regional FTAs. The paper concludes that ASEAN countries cannot rely on external tracks ‘from above’ for meaningful trade policy reform. Since the Asian crisis there has been a slowdown of reform momentum, and too much reliance on trade negotiations – especially FTAs. Rather, countries in the region have to rely on themselves –‘from below’ as it were. The engine of liberalisation and regulatory reform has to be home‐driven – as it was before the Asian crisis – with governments taking unilateral measures in response to internal and external conditions.     

External Public Debt,Trade Linkages and Contagion During the Eurozone Crisis

Against the backdrop of the contagion literature, the paper analyses the impact of financial and trade linkages on sovereign bond spreads in the Eurozone crisis. Using quarterly data for a sample of EMU countries during the period 2000–13, we estimate fixed‐effect panel models with Driscoll and Kraay standard errors that are robust to general forms of spatial and temporal dependence. Our main results can be summarised as follows: first, we suggest that the ‘sudden stop’ of capital inflow towards the peripheral sovereign debt triggered a re‐segmentation of financial markets and economic systems along national borders, with negative implications for risk‐sharing and the efficient allocation of capital. The ‘home bias’ effect – that is the increase in the share of sovereign debt held by domestic banks – worsened the country‐specific risk because the twin crisis (sovereign and banking) began to be conceived as more closely intertwined within countries than before. Second, the structure of international trade helps to account for the geographic scope of contagion, even after controlling for macroeconomic and fiscal vulnerabilities. Finally, the ‘substitution effect’ of public debt securities of stand‐alone emerging countries has affected more the sovereign spreads in the core than in the periphery.     

Capital flows,current account deficits,and financial crises in emerging market economies

Some emerging market economies are said to face today conditions similar to those faced by Mexico in 1994 at the time of its serious financial crisis. This paper identifies a number of macroeconomic and financial indicators, constructs a profile of the Mexican economy at the time of the crisis, and then compares these with the conditions in other major emerging market economies in Latin America and Asia today in order to determine the extent to which they resemble those of Mexico at the time of the 1994 crisis. The conclusion is reached that macroeconomic and financial indicators cannot by themselves predict Mexican-style financial crises. In today's world of highly integrated capital markets, any anticipation of financial unsustainability can lead to a massive capital outflow from the nation and trigger a crisis, with the catalyst usually being a worsening political problem. The usefulness of the indicators discussed is in providing a profile of the financial condition of the nation, evaluating the potential danger of a financial crisis, anticipating the depth of the crisis if one arises, and pointing to the precautions that a nation can take in trying to avoid a crisis or reduce its severity if one does occur.     

Financial contagion in East Asia and the origins of the economic and financial crisis in Korea

In this article the major elements of the 30 year old Asian development model are examined in the light of the financial crisis in the region. The notion of a common model is examined and found to be overstated. The monetary crisis in Asia has affected countries to different degrees, with Indonesia and Korea being particularly weakened. Korea has two major economic problems which can be traced to economic policies established in the 1960s. First, the industrial organization of the economy under a few industrial conglomerates, which has outlived its usefulness and is now a major source of the troubles in the economy. The conglomerates have been responsible for an investment policy where risk has been pushed to recklessness and the rate of return on capital employed is meagre. Second, banking policy, which is best characterized as a severe form of ‘moral hazard’. Both of these policies, while having played major parts in past economic successes, are now the main cause of a weakened economy in a globalized world.     

Financial versus Monetary Mercantilism: Long‐run View of Large International Reserves Hoarding

The sizeable hoarding of international reserves by several East Asian countries has been frequently attributed to a modern version of monetary mercantilism – hoarding international reserves in order to improve competitiveness. From a long‐run perspective, manufacturing exporters in East Asia adopted ‘financial’ mercantilism – subsidising the cost of capital – during decades of high growth. They switched to hoarding large international reserves when growth faltered, making it harder to disentangle the monetary mercantilism from the precautionary response to the heritage of past financial mercantilism. Monetary mercantilism also lowers the cost of hoarding, but may be associated with negative externalities leading to competitive hoarding. From this viewpoint, this paper makes three observations on the East Asian reserve accumulation. First, the recent large hoarding of reserves in Japan and Korea occurred in the aftermath of the growth strategy that combined export promotion and credit subsidisation (financial mercantilism). Second, whether the ultimate motive is mercantilist or precautionary, the ongoing reserve hoarding in Asia contains an element of competitive hoarding, which is likely to have negative externalities among countries involved. Finally, China's hoarding of reserves partly reflects the precaution against the financial fragility that is likely to follow the slowing of economic growth.