Economics, Politics and Public Policy in East Asia and the Pacific
Author: Christopher Findlay, University of Adelaide
The weather was awful outside the WTO Ministerial Conference in Geneva last week, but there was some sunshine within the convention centre.
Russia acceded as a member, along with Samoa, Montenegro and Vanuatu (the club still attracts new members, and as one minister said: ‘as far as I know, nobody has asked to leave’). Read more…
Author: Christopher Findlay, University of Adelaide
Australia benefits substantially from the growth of the Chinese economy at this stage of China’s development.
China is now Australia’s most important trading partner and is an important driver of the growth of Australian resources exports. Read more…
Author: Christopher Findlay, University of Adelaide
Qantas, the Australian national flag carrier, has faced some major challenges over recent years.
Like many Australia-based services firms which sell into global markets, Qantas has had to deal with significantly rising costs, due to its base in an economy with a booming minerals and energy sector. It is also confronting new competition in its global markets, particularly with the emergence of low-cost carriers and the Middle Eastern airlines. Read more…
Author: Christopher Findlay, University of Adelaide
The way ahead in the European debt crisis appears to lie in refinancing the debt held by those countries whose sovereign bond spreads are widening and who are at risk of default: but who will pay?
Author: Christopher Findlay, University of Adelaide
Commentators on these pages have been pondering the implications of the Fukushima explosion on Japan’s energy policy and its strategy for international purchases.
Samuels suggests an extensive re-examination of energy policy in Japan and a possible shift toward renewable energy. Read more…
Authors: Jane Drake-Brockman, Trade and Environment Solutions, Hong Kong and Christopher Findlay, University of Adelaide
The GATS’ contribution to services reform is ‘negligible.’ This is the assessment by Joe Francois and Bernard Hoekman in a recent paper (‘Services Trade and Policy’, Journal of Economic Literature, September 2010, XLVIII (3)) where they argue most services reform has been unilateral.
Regional agreements appear to have wider coverage than the GATS but their contribution with respect to actual policy change and implementation is difficult to assess. Read more…
Author: Christopher Findlay, University of Adelaide
Japanese politicians are still debating whether Japan should join the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP). TPP members are not allowed exclusions. Agriculture is the issue, specifically the domestic political constraints imposed by protection of that sector in Japan. At the same time, the business sector is pushing hard to join.
The TPP builds on the Trans-Pacific Strategic Economic Partnership Agreement which Brunei Darussalam, Chile, New Zealand and Singapore set up in 2006. Read more…
Author: Christopher Findlay, University of Adelaide
The big news in Japan this week has been the opening of another runway at Haneda, and the use of that downtown airport for international flights, and a brand new international terminal.
The estimate is that there will be an extra 110,000 landing slots a year from the new runway and 60,000 will be used for international flights. This is planned to increase at a later date to 90,000. Read more…
Author: Jenny Corbett, ANU, and Christopher Findlay, University of Adelaide
Managing the global recovery and the transmission of shocks that might accompany economic integration continues to be a talking point around the region. An example is the recent conference in Korea organised by the IMF.
These meetings generally conclude with statements that everything matters and statements such as ‘actions in multi-country frameworks can be used to complement strengthening measures adopted at the individual economy level’. Read more…
Author: Christopher Findlay, Adelaide University
The new Gillard government has responded to a vigorous industry campaign to revise Australia’s proposed taxation arrangements for minerals and energy projects. This followed the earlier plan under Prime Minister Rudd to introduce a tax (called the Resource Super Profits Tax) on resource rents in addition to the company income tax. In the revised plan (called the Minerals Resource Rent Tax) only coal and iron ore will be covered along with gas and oil.
In these new arrangements:
Author: Christopher Findlay, University of Adelaide
The value of shares in miners in Australia took a hit last week. Companies threatened to relocate. Australia’s sovereign risk is now ‘right up there’ and competitor suppliers ‘are licking their lips’. Last week’s announcement by the Australian government of the 40 per cent Resource Super Profits Tax (RSPT) from mid 2012 which is in addition to company income tax was the stimulus.
The industry says it’s another tax. In fact it offers a more efficient mechanism for collecting part of the scarcity value of mineral resources than the current tax regime. Read more…
Author: Christopher Findlay, Adelaide University
Balanced, inclusive, sustainable and knowledge-based – these are the dimensions of growth which APEC is talking about. Put their first letters together and you get BISK.
This agenda comes out of a number of forces for change, including the response to the global financial crisis, the concerns which have been raised about the distribution of the benefits of growth within economies (and between them), the intersection of these developments with the climate change debate, and the twittering rate of technological change in the digital world. Read more…
Author: Christopher Findlay, Adelaide University
Readers who are members of the JAL Mileage Bank (JMB) are probably wondering now what will happen with their bank of points. The reconstruction of JAL certainly raises this question but also highlights some even bigger challenges in air transport today.
The international system of the regulation of air transport has tried to suppress a set of highly competitive processes. Market access rights are negotiated bilaterally, and routes limited mostly to carriers identified with the countries involved. Read more…
Author: Christopher Findlay
Green growth is ‘hot’. Google brings nearly 50 million hits in less than a second, from around the world. And Presidents are talking about it.
The bottom line is this: while green growth has ‘gotta be good’, the issue is how to get there. Competition among technologies in response to signals about environmental scarcity is the basis of a good setup. The addition of mandates for particular technologies is overkill. The signal is enough. And for success, a check on the national innovation system will be valuable, not only a policy stocktake.
So what are the Presidents talking about?
Authors: Doug McTaggart, Christopher Findlay and Michael Parkin
Our points are the following:
• The global financial crisis and recession have brought renewed calls for reform of the economic system and a greater degree of regulation of markets, especially financial markets.
• That idea is wrong. The current crisis is a failure of regulation that calls for not more regulation, but the right regulation.
• The crisis has also brought calls for the heads of economists for failing to anticipate and avoid it. That idea, too, is wrong: much economic research pointed to the emerging problem.
• More economic research (and teaching), not less, is the best hope of both emerging from the current crisis and of avoiding future ones.