Author: Gavin Jones, ANU
Thailand went through its fertility transition more quickly than almost any other country, with the average number of children born to the average woman declining from about six to two in little more than two decades, between about 1970 and 1990.
Fertility rates have since gone still lower, now standing at around 30 per cent below replacement level (the level that would lead to long-run population stability). This does not mean that Thailand’s population has stopped increasing. Read more…
Author: Bob Birrell, Monash University
The Australian Government is caught between two contending pressures regarding its population policy. The first is concern over the impact of rapid metropolitan population growth on urban quality of life, including in congestion, urban amenities and rising house prices.
The second is a business-advocated argument that a high population rate is necessary to sustain high aggregate economic growth, and ensure the continued vitality of the resources sector. Read more…
Author: Homi Kharas, Brookings Institution
The Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development has just celebrated its 50th anniversary. Among the many achievements of this group of advanced economies is the unprecedented improvement in the material lives of millions of their citizens.
Between 1960 and 2010, the number of people who had middle class or better living standards in OECD member countries more than doubled from around 400 million to over 900 million. Poverty, by global standards, was essentially eradicated. Read more…
Author: Neil J. Diamant, Dickinson College
The recent flare-up over the Diaoyu Islands—a Chinese fishing boat captain was arrested by the Japanese Coast Guard—has followed a well-worn script. An international incident, say, the publication of a Japanese textbook, the bombing of a Chinese Embassy or pro-Tibet protests in France or even a disputed football match, quickly leads to protests in China, which are quickly defined as ‘nationalist’.
The international press duly reports on outraged citizens shouting slogans, bearing flags, threatening boycotts and some form of retaliation against those who have dared to offend China (The New York Times article of September 19, 2010 features a photograph of a bellicose bare-chested man with a tattoo of the national flag). Read more…
Author: Marife Ballesteros, PIDS
The enactment in the nineties of the Urban Development and Housing Act (UDHA) of 1992 and the Comprehensive Shelter Finance Act (CISFA) of 1994, two pro-poor housing legislations, greatly changed the Philippines’ policy on housing the poor. From a highly centralised and heavily subsidised policy, the government moved to a market-oriented and participatory approach to housing. Despite these reforms, the problems with UDHA and CISFA have not delivered housing on the scale or of the quality that is required.
The National Shelter Program (NSP), which regulates housing production, regulation and financing, is the Philippines’ banner program for low-income housing provision. Read more…
Author: Takatoshi Ito, University of Tokyo
The Chinese official statistics say that the average rise in property prices was 10.7 per cent in February. The increase is accelerating from a year-on-year rise of 9.5 per cent in January. But this data may significantly underestimate what is going on for prime properties in China. My friends in Shanghai and Beijing say the rate of price increases of typical housing units is above 50 per cent a year and may reach 100 per cent, and that new property developments are spreading fast from first to second-tier suburbs, with less convenient transportation.
According to the official statistics, the rate of price increases of newly-built residential buildings (at 90 square metres and below) in Beijing, Shanghai and Shenzhen are 19.3 per cent, 11.6 per cent and 19.6 per cent, respectively. In the same category, the highest property inflation was in Sanya, Hainan Island, at 57.9 per cent. Read more…
Guest Author: Milan Zavadjil, IMF Indonesia
By now it is well known that Indonesia is weathering the global financial crisis (GFC) better than most countries. This is usually explained by lower dependence on exports, as well as the stimulus provided through fiscal and monetary policies.
Nonetheless, there is another reason behind Indonesia’s strong performance. Cautious policies by Indonesia’s government, banks, corporations and households over the past decade have resulted in low debt levels and limited refinancing needs. This served the country especially well in late 2008 and early 2009, when liquidity tightened around the world. Read more…
Author: Ian Castles, Crawford School, ANU
In his review of the Australian Government’s defence white paper, Greg Sheridan, Foreign Editor of The Australian, says, ‘just for the record’, that the US economy is six times as big as China’s. He claims that the white paper’s assertion that China has the potential to overtake the US as the world’s largest economy by 2020 is ‘silly’ (‘A battle of words’, Weekend Australian, 2-3 May, p. 22).
Sheridan also claims that the use of the purchasing power parity (PPP) method to compare the relative size of economies is ‘sleight of hand’ which gives rise to a ‘statistical illusion’ and ‘a meaningless measure’.
He is wrong on all counts. Even on the discredited ‘market’ exchange rate method that he persistently champions against the unanimous advice of economic statisticians and index number theorists, the GDP of the US is now only three times as big as China’s, not six times as big (IMF, World Economic Outlook Database, April 2009).
Read more…
Author: Ian Castles
Greg Sheridan, foreign editor of The Australian, has criticised Prime Minister Rudd for suggesting that ‘by 2020 China could replace the United States as the world’s largest economy.’ He claims that this is ‘impossible’ because ‘the US economy is five times as big as China’s’ (‘No pandering to China in PM’s Asia Plan‘, The Australian Literary Review, November 2008).
This is wrong. Even if the GDPs of the two countries are ‘compared’ using the discredited practice of exchange rate-based conversion, this year’s estimated GDP of the US is only 3.4 times that of China. And if the purchasing power parity (PPP) results of the International Comparison Program (ICP) are used, the US GDP is only 1.8 times that of China (IMF World Economic Outlook Database, October 2008).
The latter measure implies that the estimates cited by Mr Rudd would be realised if, as can reasonably be expected, China’s average growth rate in the coming decade exceeds that of the US by 5 percent annually. The Prime Minister’s statement is unexceptionable.
The 2005 ICP was the largest and most complex global statistical project ever undertaken. Read more…
