Economics, Politics and Public Policy in East Asia and the Pacific
Author: Mukul G. Asher, NUS
The announcement of the April 2012–March 2013 budget for India’s western state of Gujarat is a timely reminder that state budgets deserve a more prominent role in policy debates about India’s public financial management.
States play a critical role in delivering public services and in implementing central government schemes. Read more…
Author: Madhu Purnima Kishwar, CSDS
‘Development’ and ‘underdevelopment’ are politically loaded terms.
Most ‘underdeveloped’ societies have a colonial past in which their people and resources were economically exploited and their social, cultural and political institutions were wrecked. Read more…
Author: Evan A. Feigenbaum, CFR
How many countries with nearly two decades of double-digit growth under their belt would look in the mirror and say: ‘It’s just not working anymore’?
I daresay, not many. But that is precisely what some Chinese leaders appear to be doing — a point most recently underlined in a new report, China 2030, published by the World Bank and China’s Development Research Center (DRC).
Author: Razeen Sally, ECIPE
The EU seems totally consumed by an existential battle to save the euro.
But there are other symptoms of European malaise. Read more…
Author: Peter Drysdale, Editor, East Asia Forum
There were more than a few surprises in the events that surrounded the Chinese National People’s Congress in Beijing last week.
All of them underline the stark economic and political choices that the new Chinese leadership will face in dealing with the next phase of national development. Read more…
Author: Masanaga Kumakura, Osaka City University
Japan’s public finances are in dire straits, with government debt already twice the size of the country’s GDP and still growing at an alarming rate.
Juxtaposing its debt, the Japanese government also holds substantial assets, most notably through its foreign exchange reserves. Thanks to its active exchange market interventions, Read more…
Author: Richard Katz, The Oriental Economist
Although Japan’s merchandise trade deficit in 2011 — the first since 1963 — is a product of the natural disasters of 2011, it is a harbinger of things to come. Sometime within this decade, Japan is likely to start running chronic trade deficits.
While some economists see this happening within three years, it will probably take somewhat longer. Read more…
Author: Vikram Nehru, Carnegie Endowment
Last month the Malaysian and Southeast Asian media was abuzz with the dramatic twists and turns surrounding the trial of Anwar Ibrahim and the prospect of an early election in Malaysia.
Less noticed was an announcement by Malaysia’s sovereign wealth fund, Khazanah Nasional Berhad, that it had sold its 47.2 per cent stake in the country’s national car company, Proton, to Malaysian conglomerate DRB-HICOM. Read more…
Author: Sourabh Gupta, Samuels International
In the last week of December 2011, Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda gathered together reluctant members of his Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) to endorse a doubling of the country’s consumption tax.
Politically, the increase is enormously risky. Read more…
Author: Ashima Goyal, IGIDR
In India today there is an active debate on whether the country’s trend economic growth rate is rising.
Some continue to be bearish on growth prospects, regarding each slowdown as revealing the true lower potential growth rate. But traditional factors determining growth — including labour, finance, productivity and demand — throw more light on the issue. Read more…
Author: Nicholas Lardy, PIIE
The imminent rebalancing of China’s economy has been forecast repeatedly over the past several years.
With the shrinking of China’s external surplus during 2011, proponents of this argument have all but declared victory. Read more…
Author: Vikram Nehru, Carnegie Endowment
Some Chinese astrologers have pronounced that 2012, the year of the dragon, will be particularly volatile.
But you do not have to believe in the Chinese zodiac to know that Southeast Asia is likely to have a tumultuous year. Read more…
Author: Vikram Nehru, Carnegie Endowment
Political and economic reforms and the lifting of international sanctions have set in motion Myanmar’s re-entry into the family of nations.
Already, the release of over 600 political prisoners and other economic and political reforms, including the re-registration of Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy for the 1 April by-election, have paved the way for the restoration of diplomatic relations with the US and other Western countries. Read more…
Author: Shankaran Nambiar, MIU, Malaysia
The Najib government has given renewed focus to Malaysia’s international economic relations, including liberalisation and increasing interaction with the global economy.
This approach is understandable for a small, open economy that is particularly dependent on export-driven growth, and faces considerable pressure to attract FDI and increase its exports. Read more…
Author: Suman Bery, IGC
India’s quick recovery from the post-Lehman slump of late 2008 is usually attributed to the relatively low global exposure of the country’s economy.
But this is an incomplete and perhaps misleading interpretation of what actually happened. Read more…