Academic Economic Opinion in East Asia

Abstract

AbstractSurveys of economists' opinions have been reported from around the world over the past two decades, but never (as far as we are aware) from a non‐Western country. This article presents the results of our survey of academic economists drawn from ten East Asian nations.Respondents gave their views on a number of economic propositions ranging across issues of deregulation, government business enterprises, micro‐economic and labour market reform, income distribution, and attitudes to the market.Finally, the article reports the results of multidimensional scaling techniques which were used to compare the attitudes of East Asian academic economists toward the market with those of their international colleagues. Overall, we found that while our colleagues in Asia make some allowances for circumstances unique to fast‐growing developing economies, their predilection toward market solutions to economic problems reflects that of their (predominantly) Western training.Economists in the ‘Tiger’ nations (Hong Kong, Singapore, Taiwan and South Korea) more closely reflect the views of colleagues in the market‐friendly West (especially North America, Australia and Germany) than do economists in the newly emerging (‘non‐Tiger’) nations such as Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia and the Philippines.