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South Korea’s economic development trajectory has been widely studied and is well understood. From an impoverished war-torn nation, the country has progressed on all fronts, including a ten-fold increase in per capita income over a forty-year period. It stands out internationally when it comes to education and politically it has moved away from authoritarianism to a more spirited democratic system. In short, it seems to have achieved it all. The question is, what does a country do after it has attained development? This volume addresses this question by examining Korea’s strategic engagement with Asia as a response to the limits of the home market. Access to new markets and resources in Asia through exports and foreign investment are critical. Additionally, with Korea’s ongoing demographic crisis, its engagement with foreign workers is also inevitable. This volume takes a collective look at how Korea is responding through regional integration, strategic industrial upgrading of exports, foreign markets and resources, and coping with migrants, including unskilled workers, students, and professionals. The transfer of Korean business and employment practices through investment to other countries and accommodating foreigners is not trouble-free. Further, prosperity imposes demands for increased social welfare, while the workings of contemporary global capitalism introduce new sources of inequality. Sharing that prosperity with small firms, irregular workers, and women becomes critical. This volume ends with a roundup of the key internal challenges facing Korean society and suggests the multiple ways to address them as a related response to Korea’s after-development prosperity.

From an unpromising start as ‘the basket case’ to present-day plaudits for its human development achievements, Bangladesh plays an ideological role in the contemporary world order, offering proof that the neo-liberal development model works under the most testing conditions. How were such rapid gains possible in a context of chronically weak governance? The Aid Lab subjects this so-called ‘Bangladesh paradox’ to close scrutiny, evaluating public policies and their outcomes for poverty and development since Bangladesh’s independence in 1971. Countering received wisdom that its gains owe to an early shift to market-oriented economic reform, it argues that a binding political settlement, a social contract to protect against the crises of subsistence and survival, united the elite, the masses, and their aid donors in the wake of the devastating famine of 1974. This laid resilient foundations for human development, fostering a focus on the poorest and most precarious, and in particular on the concerns of women. In chapters examining the environmental, political, and socioeconomic crisis of the 1970s, the book shows how the lessons of the famine led to a robustly pro-poor growth and social policy agenda, empowering the Bangladeshi state and its non-governmental organizations to protect and enable its population to thrive in its engagements in the global economy. Now a middle-income country, Bangladesh’s role as the world’s laboratory for aided development has generated lessons well beyond its borders, and Bangladesh continues to carve a pioneering pathway through the risks of global economic integration and climate change.

South Korea has been quietly growing into a major economic force that is even challenging some Japanese industries. This book examines South Korean economic growth as an example of “late industrialization,” a process in which a nation's industries learn from earlier innovator nations rather than innovate themselves. Discussing state intervention, shop‐floor management, and big business groups, the reasons are explored for South Korea's phenomenal growth, paying special attention to the principle of reciprocity in which the government imposes strict performance standards on those industries and companies that it aids. It is shown thereby how South Korea, Japan, and Taiwan were able to grow faster than other emerging nations such as Brazil, Turkey, India, and Mexico. The book is arranged in three main parts: Part 1 surveys South Korean history and the origins of state policies that led to the successes of its late industrialization; Part 2 examines the ways in which the South Korean management and workforce were transformed into major factors in the growth of its industry; and Part 3 discusses the creation of comparative advantage in several industries and the reasons why only one kept pace with expansion while the others drove it.

This work provides a new, comprehensive, and empirically grounded study of household incomes in China that critically examines the long-term rise and recent apparent decline in inequality. It covers incomes and inequality nationwide as well as separately in the urban and rural sectors, with close attention to measurement issues and to underlying changes in the economy, institutions, and public policy. The chapters examine a range of related topics, including the inequality of wealth, the emergence of a new middle class, the income gap between the Han and the ethnic minorities, the gender wage gap, and the impacts of government policies, such as social welfare programs and the minimum wage. A distinguishing feature of the book is its use of data from the China Household Income Project (CHIP), a collaborative, international research project that has organized nationwide household surveys spanning 1988, 1995, 2002, 2007, and, most recently, 2013. The CHIP data make possible to provide a consistent picture of the evolution of China’s income and inequality from the late 1980s to the beginning of the Xi Jinping era. Analyses of the 2013 CHIP data, with comparisons to findings from past rounds of the survey, reveal new trends in China’s inequality.

Two sharply contrasting views of China exist today. On the one hand a rising superpower predicted to have the largest economy in the world by mid century, on the other hand a brutal, anachronistic and authoritarian regime, a threat to geo-stability and to the economies of the industrial world. So which China is the real China? The author addresses this question by exploring China's economy, political and legal system, and most controversially, its record on civil, political, and personal rights in the context of the developing world. Avoiding polemic and relying on empirical evidence, he compares China's performance not with first world countries such as the US and UK, but with other middle income countries, and highlights the often hypocritical stance of an international community that demands standards from others that it does not match at home. He also critically evaluates the benefits of globalization and democratization, and the normative values of the West set against Beijing's determination to retain its cultural and political integrity. This book seeks to bridge the gap in understanding China and to create a firmer foundation for mutual trust, while recognizing that there are inevitable risks in a shift in global power of this magnitude that will require hard-headed pragmatism at times where interests collide.

The rise of Asia, and China specifically, is the single most important force reshaping the world economy at the beginning of the 21st century. From a low of 20% in 1950, Asia's share of global GDP has now risen to 33% and will exceed 40% within a generation if current forecasts are realized. Asia's growing weight in the world economy is elevating it to a central position in global economic and financial affairs. The potential global impact of this astonishing growth is far reaching, from oil markets and the environment to a reshaping of trade relations in the current multilateral system dominated by the WTO. This collection of chapters written by leading economists explores the likely impact of the rapid growth in the East Asian economies, and in particular China, on the world economy in the coming decades and the consequent challenges for the development of trade, macroeconomic, and environmental policy.

China’s economic growth has transformed the country from one of the poorest in the world to its second largest economy. The drivers of growth remain elusive, as the country is affected by both its transition from central planning and the challenges of a developing country. This book examines the main themes of growth, offering micro-level evidence to shed light on the macro drivers of the economy. It also focuses on law and informal institutions of the economy to highlight the importance of entrepreneurship and the development of the private sector.

How has the Chinese economy managed to grow at such a remarkable rate — no less than ten per cent per annum — for over three decades? This book combines economic theory, empirical estimation, and institutional analysis to address one of the most important questions facing contemporary economists. A common thread that runs throughout the book is the underlying political economy: why China became a ‘developmental state’, and how it has maintained itself as a ‘developmental state’. The book examines the causal processes at work in the evolution of China's institutions and policies. It estimates cross-country and cross-province growth equations to shed light on the proximate, and some of the underlying, determinants of the growth rate. It explores important consequences of China's growth, posing a series of key questions, such as: Is the economy running out of unskilled labour? Why and how has inequality risen; has economic growth raised happiness? What are the social costs of the overriding priority accorded to growth objectives? Can China continue to grow rapidly, or will the maturing economy, or the macroeconomic imbalances, or financial crisis, or social instability, bring it to an end?

China's telecommunications industry has seen revolutionary transformation and growth over the past three decades. Chinese Internet users number more than 150 million, and the PRC expects to quickly pass the US in total numbers of connected citizens. The number of mobile and fixed-line telephone users soared from a mere 2 million in 1980 to a total of more than 800 million in 2007 — the country took the number one rank in the world in the number of telephones. China has been the most successful developing nation in history for spreading telecommunications access at an unparalleled rapid pace. This book tells how China conducted its remarkable ‘telecommunications revolution’. It examines both corporate and government policy to get citizens connected to both voice and data networks. It looks at the potential challenges to the one-party government when citizens get this access. And it considers the new opportunities for networking now offered the people of one of the world's fastest growing economies. The book is based on the author's fieldwork conducted in several Chinese cities, as well as extensive archival research. It focuses on key issues such as building and running the country's Internet, mobile phone company rivalry, foreign investment in the sector, and telecommunications in China's vibrant city of Shanghai. It also considers the country's internal ‘digital divide’, and questions how equitable the telecommunications revolution has been. Finally, it examines the ways the PRC's entry to the World Trade Organization will shape the future course of telecommunications growth.

Since 1978 China has been remarkably successful in reducing the CO₂ intensity of GDP and industry. The book shows how China’s industrial and technology policies affecting four energy-intensive industries—aluminum, cement, iron and steel, and paper—have transformed industrial structure within these industries and technological capabilities within enterprises in these industries, and how both types of changes have put each of these industries on substantially lower CO₂ emissions trajectories. These conclusions are demonstrated through four lines of analysis. The first is several detailed enterprise-level case studies to document the link between enterprise-level investments in technological learning and CO₂ intensity. The second is econometric analysis using a KLEM-type model of energy intensity and a large database of enterprises to formally test the hypothesis that enterprises’ own investments in technology learning contributed to lower energy intensities. Third is a comparison of China’s experience in one industry, cement, to that industry in Indonesia, where concern for technological catch-up and energy efficiency has been less pressing. Finally, the book provides industry-wide estimates of CO₂ savings from specific technological innovations in each of the four industries and compares them to a business-as-usual scenario. The estimates show that CO₂ emissions in these four industries were 45% lower than they would have been in the absence of the technological changes identified. If these CO₂ savings had not occurred, the world’s CO₂ emissions would have been 10% higher in 2010.

This book offers a systematic and comparative study on urbanization and urban development in China and India. Contributed by a team of top experts from China and India, it contains original research papers that have not been published. The study aims at addressing two most fundamental issues of urbanization: why and where to urbanize. The first issue relates to the speed and scale of urbanization and the second issue relates to urban systems or spatial distribution of urbanites in different-sized cities. To answer these two questions, the book examines various drivers and compares the benefits and costs of urbanization from different perspectives, paying particular attention to the roles of markets, government and the society. This book presents evidence-based policy suggestions regarding labor market, land and housing market, FDI and capital market, education, environment, poverty and inequality, etc. The main conclusion from this study is: Asian countries like China and India will experience an urbanization path led by mega-cities. What the government can do is to improve liveability within cities and equalize life quality across cities. Given the similarities and differences of these two giants, it is anticipated that findings, conclusions and implications from this comparative analysis will be useful to other governments, institutions as well as researchers in Asia and beyond.

This book chronicles how a controversial set of policy assumptions about the Japanese economy, known as revisionism, rose to become the basis of the trade policy approach of the Clinton administration. In the context of deep-rooted fears over Japan's increasing economic strength, revisionists argued that Japan represented a distinctive form of capitalism that was inherently closed to imports and that posed a threat to U.S. high-tech industries. Revisionists advocated a “managed trade” solution in which the Japanese government would be forced to set aside a share of the market for foreign goods. The author describes the role that various American academics, government officials, and business leaders played in developing revisionist thought. The revisionist drumbeat grew loudest just as the Clinton administration came into office. The author uses extensive interviews with policy makers to trace the internal discussions inside the Clinton White House, which culminated in the adoption of revisionist assumptions and then to demands for “results-oriented” trade agreements during the Framework negotiations. Japan, however, refused to accept these managed trade solutions, and fought to discredit revisionism and to rally global support against American unilateralism. Despite a history of caving in to U.S. pressures, this time the Japanese held firm even in the face of an historic failure of a bilateral summit in 1994 and the threat of sanctions against Japanese autos in 1995. In the end, it was the U.S. that folded; for the first time ever, Japan said “no,” and in the process beat back America's demands for managed trade once and for all.

This book analyses the role of communities and markets in economic development. It is divided into three parts. Part I presents four chapters on historical and theoretical perspectives on the community and market. Part II contains four chapters focusing on the role of the community in the process of market development in contemporary developing and transitional economics. Part III focuses on communal control over public goods.

This book uses comparative institutional analysis to explain differences in national economic performance. Countries have their own rules for corporate governance and they have different market arrangements; and these differences in rules and organization affect the way firms behave. Countries also tend to develop conventions of organizational architecture whether their hierarchies are functional, horizontal, or decentralized. This affects the way in which they process information, and information management is increasingly seen as being of crucial importance to a firm's performance. This book accords more importance to these factors than to the factors conventionally used in applying a neoclassical model of economic efficiency. It applies game theory, contract theory, and information theory. By describing the rules and norms in Japan, the USA, and the transitional economies, the book shows how firms can achieve competitive advantage in international markets if these conventions and rules are well suited to the industrial sector in which the firms operate. The book is particularly concerned with how Japan, with its main bank and lifelong employment systems, as well as information-sharing firm organizational structure, might reform its institutions to maintain competitive advantage in the world economy.

The global financial crisis of 2008/09 raised concerns that the world would move toward protectionism and isolationism. One fear was that tariffs and other barriers to international trade would increase, thereby reducing exports and imports of goods and services. Also restrictions on international financial flows might grow, thereby lowering cross-border asset holdings and amounts of foreign direct investment. Increases in trade and financial protectionism clearly pose threats to Asian economies, which rely heavily on external demand as an impetus to growth and are closely linked to global financial markets. To study these and related issues, this volume brings together eight chapters that deal with time patterns in trade barriers, volumes of trade, cross-border asset holdings and flows, foreign direct investment, currency regimes, and production structures between countries. The chapters emphasize developments in Asia since the early 1990s, but parts of the analysis relate to longer-term Asian history. The inclusion of the 1997/98 Asian financial crisis is particularly advantageous, although it was more localized than the 2008/09 crisis, the reactions observed within Asia in the late 1990s provide useful information about likely responses in Asia and elsewhere to the 2008/09 event.

The book examines in the context of South Asia, four interrelated dimensions that constitute the central policy challenges of our time: consolidating democracy, violent extremism, mass poverty, and climate change. These dimensions are explored at the country-specific as well as the regional levelby some of the leading scholars and eminent public figures from the region, and the inter connections between these dimensions are developed in Chapter 1. Consolidating democracy requires governments to give space to civil society and provide institutional access to the under-privileged over governance decisions that affect their life. Such empowerment requires rapid poverty reduction through inclusive growth. A major hurdle in achieving inclusive growth is climate change, which has a relatively greater adverse effect on the poor. Mitigation and adaptation measures require collective efforts for joint watershed management, improved efficiency of irrigation and water use, development of heat-resistant varieties of food grains, and development of decentralized food stock silos to manage possible food shortages in future. The book advocates that a prerequisite for such efforts is a new approach based on interstate peace and cooperation. This could facilitate the establishment within individual nation states of institutional links between democratic structures, development initiatives, managing violence, and conserving the environment. The potential for cooperation is located in the perennial wisdom of South Asia. Through the interplay of the plurality of religions and cultures in South Asian history has emerged a consciousness of transcendent unity. Rediscovering this consciousness could play an important role in articulating new institutions for cooperation to build a better future for the people of this region.

Since the Second World War, surprisingly few developing countries have experienced a truly sustained episode of economic and social convergence towards the structural characteristics of the advanced nations. The region of the world that has gone the furthest in that convergence is East Asia. Much has been written on comparative industrialization and development in North East Asia but relatively less on South East Asia. This book focuses on the latter and, more specifically on Malaysia, Indonesia, and Thailand. These three nations have all undergone a major transformation—in a way never anticipated—from being poor, agrarian countries to middle-income countries that have developed an industrial and manufacturing base. The ‘puzzle’ that flows from that achievement is as follows: how did MIT achieve such a transformation, and how did they achieve the transformation with a form of economic growth that was driven by structural transformation, but that was also ‘inclusive’? Given that historically it has been thought that structural transformation tends to push up inequality, whilst inclusive growth necessitates static or even falling inequality, this last point is particularly salient to developing countries. Understanding how the transformation was possible in a relatively short space of time, the extent to which it was inclusive, and the caveats and prospects for South East Asia is thus an area of enquiry significant to all developing countries as they seek economic and social transformation.

This survey of research on economic geography in two volumes is part of a series undertaken by the Indian Council of Social Science Research (ICSSR) since 1969, covering various social science disciplines. It aims to understand spatial organization vis-à-vis socio-economic development in India, during the period 2003–2009. An important area of focus is the country’s urban-centric economic growth in the midst of innumerable villages and small towns. The survey underlines the need to reverse this pattern and integrate rural, suburban, as well as peri-urban regions in the national developmental agenda. The first volume of this survey, Land, Water, and Agriculture, brings out the environmental basis of agricultural development. It provides directions to develop geographical research and ways to strengthen methods such as remote sensing and GIS in order to facilitate application of land-based resources for general welfare. The essays also map research in agricultural geography and explore themes such as agrarian relations; cropping pattern and agricultural productivity; food security; and livestock.

This survey of research on economic geography in two volumes is part of a series undertaken by the Indian Council of Social Science Research (ICSSR) since 1969, covering various social science disciplines. It aims to understand spatial organization vis-à-vis socio-economic development in India, during the period 2003–2009. An important area of focus is the country’s urban-centric economic growth in the midst of innumerable villages and small towns. The survey underlines the need to reverse this pattern and integrate rural, suburban, as well as peri-urban regions in the national developmental agenda. The second volume of this survey, Urbanization, Industry, and Development, discusses social infrastructure and development in the light of two important changes in the country: liberalization of the economy and decentralization of government. Analysing issues related to urban environment, the rise of the tertiary and quaternary sectors in the urban economy, and the geography of tourism, transport, and trade, the essays provide effective strategies for India’s development. The contributors also evaluate the development issues in the light of changing perspectives; policies and strategies to define and attain development goals; resultant regional successes and inequalities; their correlates; and human development in the country.