Fragmentation and vertical intra-industry trade in East Asia

East Asia experienced an unprecedented change in its international trade patterns in the last 10–15 years. To investigate this development, the paper decomposes machinery trade into one-way trade, vertical intra-industry trade (vertical IIT), and horizontal intra-industry trade (horizontal IIT), using finely disaggregated international trade data. Our empirical analysis confirms that the significance of vertical IIT drastically increased, while the relative importance of one-way trade dropped. In addition, our empirical results show no evidence that most vertical IIT conforms to the vertical product differentiation model. Rather, the explosive increase in vertical IIT is largely due to the expansion of back-and-forth transactions in vertically fragmented cross-border production processes. The findings show that vertical international production sharing did become an essential part of each economy in East Asia in the 1990s, particularly with the explosive increase in vertical transactions of machinery parts and components.     

Fragmentation and agglomeration matter: Japanese multinationals in Latin America and East Asia

This paper analyzes micro data of Japanese multinational enterprises (MNEs) to investigate differences between Latin America and East Asia from various viewpoints of their corporate activities. One of the crucial factors to make a sharp contrast is the development of international production/distribution networks utilizing the benefit of fragmentation and agglomeration. Japanese firms have played an important role in developing international production/distribution networks in East Asia while they have not yet either constructed a critical mass of industrial clusters or formulated efficient vertical chains of production in Latin America, where proper international commercial policies are the key for success.     

Production fragmentation and trade integration: East Asia in a global context

This paper examines the implications of international production fragmentation for global and regional trade patterns, with special emphasis on countries in East Asia. It is found that, while trade in parts and components (fragmentation trade) has generally grown faster than total world manufacturing trade, the degree of dependence of East Asia on this new form of international specialization is proportionately larger than in North America and Europe. International production fragmentation has certainly played a pivotal role in the continuing dynamism of the East Asian economies and increasing intra-regional economic interdependence. There is, however, no evidence to suggest that this new form of international exchange has contributed to reducing the region's dependence on the global economy. On the contrary, growth dynamism based on vertical specialization depends inexorably on extra-regional trade in final goods, and this dependence has in fact increased over the years.     

Does regionalism lead to more global trade integration in East Asia?

Since early 1999, global trade liberalization has been sidelined as regional trade agreements (RTA) have become the preferred choice in East Asia. Does this shift suggest that global trade and welfare levels will be raised? In contrast to unilateral trade liberalization, RTAs may well cause both ‘trade creation’ and ‘trade diversion,’ so that their net effect on global trade and welfare becomes ambiguous. It is conjectured that RTAs among “natural trading partners” are more likely to be trade-creating, and less likely to divert trade from non-member countries, in which case welfare will improve. We find that if an RTA involves geographically proximate countries (measured either by distance or border), trade significantly increases among them. At the same time, geographical proximity also contributes to increasing trade between members and the rest of the world. We examine how existing or proposed East Asian trading blocs affect intra-bloc and extra-bloc trade and thereby global trade. We find that the East Asian RTAs are likely to create more trade among members without diverting trade from non-members.     

欧洲一体化对东亚经济一体化的启示

区域经济一体化是当前世界发展中的一个重要趋势。在探讨东亚经济一体化这一问题上,回顾欧洲一体化走过的道路无疑会给我们带来很多启示。针对东亚经济合作目前所呈现出来的多元化模式,我们不难看出,东亚经济一体化的发展瓶颈在于各国关系的有效处理和各国利益的合理分配。总之,从欧洲一体化的历程看东亚经济一体化,更应该确立合作的理念。同时,东亚经济一体化也可以借鉴欧洲经济一体化的经验,用具有约束力的条约机制去巩固每一个一体化成果。     

The relationship between bank performance and intellectual capital in East Asia

In this paper, we develop a performance efficiency value by using data envelopment analysis (DEA) to integrate five perspectives of CAMEL (Capital Adequacy, Asset Quality, Management, Earnings, Liquidity), which is used by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation to evaluate banking performance. In addition, we utilize a tiered DEA to categorize banks into four groups. One-way ANOVA is used to analyze differences in CAMEL and intellectual capital (IC) variables across the four groups. CAMEL variables are manifested more strongly in highly efficient groups when compared with inefficient groups. The findings also reveal the importance of IC in achieving high levels of bank efficiency.     

Unemployment in East and West Europe

We use new 1991–2005 panel data to address the issue of unemployment in Central-East Europe. We compare the evolution of unemployment, its dynamics and related phenomena in five former communist economies in the Central Europe and use the geographically close West Germany as a benchmark for a mature market economy. We identify the differences and similarities in the evolution of the key labor market variables and contrast different outcomes with the diverse initial conditions and subsequent paths. All countries have experienced aggregate demand shocks, structural shocks and hysteresis. Despite diverse initial conditions and subsequent paths, the patterns observed are surprisingly similar. The eastern part of Germany appears to be a special case with extraordinary high unemployment inflows. Contrary to the theoretical models, in the transition economies we do not observe an initially rapid rise in the inflow rate, followed by a convergence of this rate to the levels of market economies. Rather, there is a relatively gradual rise in the inflow rate towards the level of market economies. The differences in unemployment rates turn out to be attributable to a considerable extent to the actual differences in the inflow rates. The trajectories in the unemployment-vacancy space observed in the Central-East European countries increasingly resemble those observed in the developed market economies. Interestingly, these similarities arise despite differences in the institutional setting across these economies.     

Employers,trade unions and environmental problems in Europe

This article reports the results of a comparative EU study, showing that there is evidence that the social partners in some countries have begun to discuss environmental protection as part of their industrial relations agenda, but such discussions are limited in scope and are restricted to a small number of countries, particularly Denmark, Germany and the Netherlands.     

Explaining the East Asia miracle: The role of urbanization

Defying the law of diminishing marginal returns, many countries experienced high rates of investment for a prolonged period of time during their take-offs. This paper represents a first attempt to explain this contradiction from the perspective of urbanization. Urbanization provides opportunities for investment and helps moderate the capital/labor ratio in the urban sector. In particular, it promotes knowledge accumulation through “learning by doing”. This can explain why the law of diminishing marginal returns to capital is not applicable to economies in the early period of their catching-up. More specifically, we construct a two-sector general equilibrium model incorporating urbanization and “learning by doing”, predicting that in the presence of urbanization, as long as the “learning by doing” effect is sufficiently large, capital return will depict an inverted U-shape as capital accumulates or urbanization proceeds. Empirical evidence from China confirms the theoretical prediction.     

The long-term volume of East Europe's foreign trade: An estimate

The transformation process of East European (EE) countries led to the disappearance of the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance, the former Soviet-bloc economic integration scheme, as well as to other changes in the foreign trade sector of those economies. This study seeks to identify the potential long run modifications in the volume of trade of EE countries by using a well-established model employed in the foreign trade literature, the gravity equation. Quantitative results suggest that in the next decades trade between East and West European countries could double from its present level.     

Mapping global sustainability report scoring: a detailed analysis of Europe and Asia

This study maps the General Reporting Initiative (GRI) relations for a set of global enterprises. Enterprise interrelationships are built using the Mutual Information (MI) of the data reported by enterprises. From the MI topology, we describe interrelationships among the enterprises using chord diagrams to represent the inter- and intra-connectivity between geographical regions and economic sectors globally, by continent and country. Detailed maps are presented for European and Asian regions/sectors, including the relationship between Europe and Asia’s top reporting countries. Our findings reinforce previous research regarding the role of Europe as a driver of sustainability and its influence worldwide. We also determined that Spain is a major player in Europe and that Northern Europe does not have the assumed leading role mentioned in related studies. Eastern Asia is, by far, the leader of the region, and the GRI maps demonstrate the preponderant role of China in the region and the minimal role of India. MI topology maps outline the behavior of the economic sectors, for all the studied regions. Furthermore, a measure that relates the inter- to intra-connections is presented to describe the internal an external relationships among regions/sectors.     

Capital and trade flows in Europe and the impact of enlargement

The Eastern enlargement of the European Union (EU) is likely to give a further boost to trade and capital flows, yet empirical evidence on its possible effects is scarce. This paper uses four different datasets to estimate the determinants of international asset holdings and trade flows. We find in most regressions that EU membership has a significant effect. Based on additional forecasts of the expected flows to 10 transition economies, we conclude that for the EU candidates actual levels are still far below expected values in most cases. Consequently, we anticipate raising capital and trade flows with the approach of EU accession, in particular for the seven EU candidates besides the Czech Republic, Hungary, and Poland.     

Explaining trade policy in the Middle East and North Africa

This paper examines the evolution of trade policy in the Middle East and North Africa (MNA) countries since the 1960s. It shows that contrary to the current popular perception, until the 1980s MNA countries were generally more open than the rest of the developing world. That situation changed in the 1980s and especially the 1990s as most MNA countries maintained their trade policies, while many other developing countries proceeded with liberalization. The paper develops and estimates a political economy model of trade policy to search for the factors behind the initial relative openness of the region and its reversal. The results show that the pattern is related to the rise and decline of the region's resource rents, which affected the political weight of domestic producers versus consumers. Other factors are also considered, but they all seem to have secondary effects.     

Banking efficiency in South East Europe: Evidence for financial crises and the gap between new EU members and candidate countries

In this study we compare the cost efficiency of banks in ten South East European countries and find out how differences in efficiency are related to EU membership. The results reveal a statistically significant cost efficiency gap between EU and non-EU banking systems in the region, where on average EU banking systems tend to be more cost efficient than their non-EU counterparts. In contrast to other similar studies analyzing banking efficiency in South East European countries, we also run β-convergence and σ-convergence tests, as proposed in the literature. Based on these tests we can draw conclusions concerning the existence of a catching-up effect, since the detected cost efficiency gap is closing predominantly because of adjustments on the side of the less efficient banks. Additionally, we found that during the 2008 global financial crisis, the average cost efficiency scores of banks in the region improved, which could be explained by enhanced incentives of bank managers for intensified cost optimization in banks in crisis times. Our results suggest that the institutional adjustments in the non-EU countries should continue towards EU standards, as the EU banking systems tend to dominate in terms of measured cost efficiency.     

Europe and Central Asia after the May 2004 EU enlargement: A brief synthesis

This introduction provides a synthesis of the three papers in this symposium and its conclusion focusing on the potential trade between the Central Asian countries and the EU and highlights the impediments to achieving this potential. We argue that institutions matter and that, given the current level of institutional and infrastructure development in Central Asia, government intervention is necessary to establish a viable economic partnership.     

Interest rate pass-through in South East Europe: An empirical analysis

This paper investigates the effectiveness of the interest rate channel in three small open economies with rigid exchange rate regimes in South East Europe – Bulgaria, Croatia and Macedonia – during the period 2000–2010. Specifically, we examine the size and speed of adjustment of bank lending rates to the changes in money market rates by employing various cointegration methods. In addition, we assess the stability of interest rate passthrough during the transition period, including the recent economic crisis. The results reveal the existence of a cointegrating relationship among some of the interest rates. We find that the long-run pass-through is far from complete with the exception of Macedonia. The shortrun adjustment of lending rates is also low and sluggish, implying that the domestic monetary policy may have a limited impact on the interest rate channel. Finally, the econometric investigation provides mixed evidence on the stability of the interest rate pass-through. Therefore, the overall findings of the paper support the view that in small open economies with rigid exchange rates the effectiveness of domestic monetary policy through the interest rate channel is quite limited.     

东亚区域内贸易扩张的影响因素分析——来自中国的经验数据

本文首先运用贸易矩阵和广义经济分类(BEC)考察了东亚区域内贸易扩张的演进和特征,发现中间产品是东亚区域内贸易的第一大类产品.继而,用贸易流量分析模型按国别探讨了需求因素、竞争因素和区位因素分别对区域内贸易增长的贡献程度,并计算出中国对东亚区域内贸易增长的贡献度最大.最后,运用中国1992-2006年的数据验证了外部需求是东亚区域内贸易扩张的首要推动力.本文的实证分析结果对解释东亚区域内贸易扩张提供了新的证据,对未来的区域经济合作具有重要的参考价值.     

东亚经济周期同步性与区域经济一体化

利用经济周期同步性对于区域经济一体化的理论涵义,采用经济周期距离衡量经济周期同步性程度,结合多维标度技术,分析了包含中国在内9个东亚经济体和多种经济体组合的经济周期距离及其阶段性变化。在此基础上,构建包括双边贸易强度、专业化差异、金融联系等变量的影响因素集合对经济周期距离加以解释。实证结果不仅对东亚经济一体化进程以及中国在区域经济中的角色演化进行了评价与展望,还讨论了中国参与未来区域合作的策略选择。     

The trade union merger process in Europe: defensive adjustment or strategic reform?

In most Member States of the European Union, trade unionists are reforming trade union structures through engagement in the merger process. This article charts the scale of the merger process since 2000 and identifies the key features of the unions that result from it. The article assesses the outcome of the merger process by reference to aspects of trade union purpose. While much of the merger process is shown to be defensive, particular mergers are highlighted as comprising features that may assist in the renewal of trade union organisation.