Catching Up and Convergence: Long-run Growth in East Asia

The paper attempts to combine the traditional learning model with the recent theory of economic growth using Maddison's long‐run real GDP per capita data of the three fastest growing countries in East Asia: Korea, Taiwan, and Japan. The authors first explain games of catching‐up among nations, and then explain the learning coefficients of Taiwan and Korea with Japan and the United States through periods before and after World War II. The model of leaning leads to the logistic model of economic growth of convergence between two countries. Using time‐series data, the coefficients of a logistic model are estimated to confirm that the real GDP per capita of Taiwan and Korea are converging to that of Japan and the United States, respectively. Similarly, Japan's GDP per capita converges to that of the United States. The time required for finite convergence for these countries is also estimated.     

美国金融危机成因分析及对中国的警示

美国金融危机引发全球金融市场动荡。这场金融危机从美国的房地产市场开始，以惊人的速度蔓延，波及至信贷市场、资本市场，封全球尤其是西方金融机构和金融市场造成重大冲击，短期内升级为全球金融风暴。中国目前正处于资产价格上涨、信贷投放过度的经济环境之中，美国的金融危机给中国敲响了警钟。本文通过描述此次危机的发展脉络，在分析美国金融危机背景的基础上，从强化房地产按揭贷款业务风险管理，审慎推进资产证券化等六个方面得出了对中国的警示。     

房地产市场的过度繁荣:日本与美国的比较

从上世纪80年代末日本和美国的次贷危机比较来看,至少可以得出两个结论:一是房地产市场的过度繁荣,往往是一国经济增长动力减弱之际,而又过度利用金融资源之故;二是次贷市场的发展和扭曲不是次贷危机爆发的根本原因。金融体系有内在的扩张和不稳定性,在现代金融体系下,房地产市场放任自由的发展,其后果往往是投机盛行和被过度金融化,从而导致经济主体过度负债和实质意义上的"次贷",并危及实体经济的平稳运行。     

US–Japan Trade Frictions: The Past,the Present,and Implications for the US–China Trade War

The United States and Japan have been involved in trade frictions over a number of products including textiles, steel, automobiles, semi‐conductors, and agricultural products over the last 50 years. US–Japan trade frictions have taken basically two forms: (i) the United States attempting to restrict Japan's exports to the United States; and (ii) the United States attempting to increase its exports to Japan by “opening” the Japanese market. By putting pressure on Japan to adopt necessary measures, the United States sought to achieve two main objectives: (i) to reduce its trade deficit vis‐à‐vis Japan; and (ii) to protect and/or promote US industries. The United States failed to achieve the first objective, while some success was achieved for the second objective. The United States triggered a trade war against China with the objectives of: (i) reducing the bilateral trade deficit; and (ii) stopping unfair trade practices by Chinese firms such as violations of intellectual property rights and forced technology transfer. Based on the experiences from the US–Japan trade frictions, the United States may achieve some success for the second objective, but not for the first. The chances of achieving the second objective would increase if the United States cooperates with countries such as Japan and the European Union, which are faced with similar problems.     

Causality, real estate prices, and the current account

This paper explores the causal relations between real estate prices and the current account using recently developed econometric methods for recursive systems. Using a variety of high-quality real estate indices, we find little evidence that current account deficits (capital account surpluses) directly drove real estate prices in the United States, Spain, and Ireland. There is some evidence for this linkage in England; however it is transitory and not persistent. There is also strong evidence that current account surpluses have direct impacts on mortgage rates in the United States, providing an indirect channel for stimulating the real estate market mediated through the financial markets.     

CURRENCY VERSUS BANKING IN THE FINANCIAL CRISIS OF 1931

During the 1920s, Germany was the world's largest capital importer, financing reparations through U.S. credits. We examine financial channels in crisis transmission between these two countries around the German financial crisis of 1931. We specify a structural dynamic factor model to identify financial and monetary factors separately for each of the two economies. We find substantial crisis transmission from Germany to the United States via the financial channel, while monetary or financial crisis transmission from the United States to Germany was weak. We also find major real effects of the 1931 crisis on both economies, again transmitted via the financial channel.     

中国对美“双重输出”格局及其新变化*

20世纪末以来，中美关系作为最重要的南北关系，很大程度上反映着世界格局的演进。客观上，中美分别作为产业资本第一大国和金融资本第一大国，其大国关系的实质乃中国对美“双重输出”：中国向美国输出廉价工业品和对美输出资本投资；美国向中国输出低成本资金和服务。双方因处于不同的发展阶段而形成战略上紧密的经济互补关系。但这一关系因2008年金融危机之后的中美“相向转型”--中国向金融资本经济升级，美国向实体产业回调--而渐进向互斥竞争转化。处于对立矛盾却难以对抗的中国客观上只能对内依次转嫁“输入型危机”所引发的制度成本，近期需要借生态文明和城乡统筹转向国家综合安全战略调整，使这种危机借助乡土社会实现软着陆。     

Time-Series Support for Balassa's Productivity-Bias Hypothesis: Evidence from Korea

In this paper we use the Johansen and Juselius cointegration technique and quarterly data over the period 1979–1993 to test the productivity-bias hypothesis between Korea and four of its major trading partners (Germany, Japan, the United Kingdom, and the United States). The results show that in all four cases the deviation of purchasing-power parity (PPP) from the equilibrium exchange rate has a long-run relationship with the productivity ratios, supporting the notion that as Korea becomes relatively more productive, the Korean won appreciates in real terms.     

中国经济与美、日经济波动的相关性研究

中国经济与美、日经济波动有很强的相关性和长期的均衡关系，美国经济与中国经济间有正向关系；日本与中国经济间却是负向关系。美、日两国经济的共同波动会通过资本流动的渠道影响中国。因此，为了降低美日经济波动对中国的影响，中国贸易必须走多元化的路子，而且应减少对国外资金流入的依赖。     

Real interest rate linkages in the Pacific-Basin region

This paper examines the linkage of real interest rates of a group of Pacific-Basin countries with a focus on East Asia. We consider monthly real interest rates of US, Japan, Korea, Singapore, and Thailand from 1980 to 2006. The impulse response analysis and half-life estimation are conducted in a multivariate setting, adopting the bias-corrected bootstrap as a means of statistical inference. It is found that the degree of capital market integration has increased after the Asian financial crisis in 1997. The overall evidence suggests that the crisis has substantially changed the nature of the short run interactions among the real interest rates. Before the crisis, both the US and Japanese capital markets dominated the region. After the crisis, the dominance of the Japanese market has completely disappeared, while the US market remains as a sole dominant player and the Korean market has become more influential.     

THE DETERMINANTS OF KOREA'S FOREIGN DIRECT INVESTMENT FROM THE UNITED STATES, 1980–2001: AN EMPIRICAL INVESTIGATION OF FIRM-LEVEL DATA

This paper examines the link between Korea's foreign direct investment (FDI) inflows from the United States and locational, financial, and macroeconomic variables using firm-level data of FDI transactions, which were completed during the period from January 1980 to February 2001. Korea's FDI inflows from the United States are found to have significant associations with real exchange rates, relative wealth, relative wage costs, expected exchange rate changes, and interest rate differentials. The extent and direction of the links, however, have varied according to different FDI regimes during the last 20 yr in Korea. Industry-specific factors have also played a role in determining Korea's FDI inflows . ( JEL F21, F30)     

Asian real interest rates, nonlinear dynamics, and international parity

This study tests for nonlinearities in the real interest differentials of four South East Asian economies with respect to Japan and the United States. The logistic and exponential smooth transition regression models are applied to monthly data over the sample period 1977M1–2000M3. There is evidence of nonlinearities in Asian real interest differentials where nonlinearities are often captured by the logistic smooth transition autoregressive (STAR) model. The extent of nonlinearities varies across the sample with the Singapore–Japan and Thailand–Japan differentials exhibiting the sharpest transition from one regime to another. Large shocks to real interest parity (RIP) are more likely to lead to the reestablishment of parity at a faster rate than small shocks. Modeling the nonlinear stochastic dynamics of RIP can thus be useful for policymaking purposes in recovering information on monetary and financial crises.     

IS JAPAN'S HOUSEHOLD SAVING RATE REALLY HIGH?

This paper discusses, and measures the quantitative impact of, a number of conceptual issues relating to the household saving rate data in the National Accounts of Japan. It finds that Japan's seemingly high household saving rate is biased due to the exclusion of capital transfers and real capital gains, the valuation of depreciation at historical cost rather than at replacement cost, the use of a residual measure of financial saving rather than Flow of Funds Accounts data thereon, and the treatment of expenditures on consumer durables as consumption rather than as saving, but that the biases are to a considerable extent mutually offsetting. It also finds that the Japan-U.S. gap in household (personal) saving rates is due largely to conceptual differences and deficiencies and that household saving in Japan consists primarily of financial saving (net lending), meaning that most of it is available to finance investment in other sectors of the economy and/or abroad.     

The impacts of robotization on macro and sectoral economies within a world econometric model

A world model of industry and trade is developed to evaluate the probable global impact of robotization on the macro and sectoral economies. It is found that robotization in Japan and Korea has a positive impact on their economic growth, whereas robotization in the United States apparently has a negative impact on economic growth. It is also found that the international impacts of robotization in Japan are negative for the United States, but positive for the Korean economy.     

(NON‐)RESILIENCY OF FOREIGN DIRECT INVESTMENT IN THE UNITED STATES DURING THE 2007–2009 FINANCIAL CRISIS

We study the contraction of foreign direct investment (FDI) flows in the United States during the recent financial crisis and show their unusual non‐resiliency, which depends in part on the global nature of the economic recession, but also on the increases in the cost of financing FDI in the economies in which the flows originate. To formally study the effects of external financial conditions on FDI in the United States, we exploit the three dimensions of a panel of US inward FDI flows organized by recipient US industries, source countries and years for the recorded flows. Changes in the cost of finance in the source countries have little or no effect on total inward flows (the sum of equity, debt and reinvested earnings) over the 2006–2010 period. However, US industries characterized by more financial vulnerability experience statistically significant variations in the debt and equity components of inward FDI flows in response to the changes in the cost of capital that occurred in the source countries during the crisis.     

HARD OR SOFT? INSTITUTIONAL REFORMS AND INFRASTRUCTURE SPENDING AS DETERMINANTS OF FOREIGN DIRECT INVESTMENT IN CHINA*

We examine whether hard infrastructure in the form of more highways and railroads or soft infrastructure in the form of more transparent institutions and deeper reforms lead to more foreign direct investment (FDI). We use data on FDI from the United States, Japan, Hong Kong, Taiwanese and Korea to various regions of China from 1990 to 2002. We control for the standard determinants of FDI—regional market sizes, wage rates, human capital and tax policies. Then we add indices of hard and soft infrastructures. We found that empirically soft infrastructure consistently outperforms hard infrastructure as a determinant of FDI.     

How Important are Financial Frictions in the United States and the Euro Area?

This paper aims to evaluate whether frictions in credit markets are important for business cycles in the United States and the euro area. I modify the DSGE financial accelerator model developed by Bernanke, Gertler and Gilchrist (1999) by adding such frictions as price indexation to past inflation, sticky wages, consumption habits and variable capital utilization. When estimating the model using Bayesian methods, I find that financial frictions are relevant in both areas. According to the posterior odds ratio, the data clearly favor the model with financial frictions, both in the United States and the euro area. Moreover, financial frictions are larger in the euro area.     

合规成本与中小股东保护——从跨境上市和自愿性退市谈起

如何在适度监管、降低企业合规成本的同时实现对中小股东有力的保护是一个没有现成答案的议题。在美国和日本上市的外国公司的自愿性退市,折射了过度监管出现的合规成本给企业带来的问题。中国的资本市场建立时间不长,在取得巨大成就的同时也面临着很多的挑战,尤其是对小股东保护更需加强。在中国设立国际板的尝试中,必须处理好合规和保护中小股东利益的关系。     

Public Saving and Policy Coordination in Aging Economies

In the coming decades, the share of people of working age will fall significantly in most developed countries. According to optimal taxation theory, public debts should be reduced before the baby‐boom generation retires. I find that if debts are instead maintained at current levels, welfare may be reduced substantially in countries with a large public sector and/or a large demographic change. Since population aging will be less dramatic in the United States than in Europe and Japan, capital will move from Europe and Japan to the United States. These capital movements will facilitate the US demographic transition but aggravate the transition in most European countries.     

我国国际资本流动性程度和非流动性原因的度量与检验--来自中美日三国消费模式对比的经验证据

加入WTO以后,我国的国际资本流动性开始有所加强,流动方式也有所改变。文章选择中国、美国和日本的消费和收入数据,在国家之间实际利率均衡的假设下,通过国家消费模式的考察和对比,发现我国的经济运行并不满足国际资本完全流动性假说,其原因既出于我国资本市场与国际资本市场之间存在进入限制,也出于我国资本市场与国际资本市场的非完全整合。这些经验发现表明,我国经济中的名义利率、汇率和资本市场仍然处于有限管制过程中,必须通过深化国内金融体制改革和逐步实现资本市场开放等有力措施来增强我国国际资本的流动性,进而保持我国快速经济增长和提高整体资源配置效率。