Economic Growth In Asia Research Articles

The economic geography of infrastructure in Asia: The role of institutions and regional integration

We examine the spillover effects of infrastructure on economic growth after controlling institutions and regional integration. We develop an augmented endogenous growth model to test the complementarity between proximate factors and infrastructure to explain regional growth dynamics. We build a multidimensional infrastructure index, capturing quantitative and qualitative dimensions using the Alkire-Foster method. The empirical analysis is based on 35 Asian economies during the 2006–2016 period using the spatial Durbin panel model. The results show that infrastructures have a positive and significant effect, both direct and spillover, on regional development. The quality of the infrastructure has a relatively higher direct impact, and the quantity has a relatively high spillover effect. These results show that the amount of infrastructure is more beneficial for the regions. On the contrary, quality is more fruitful for the country. Furthermore, the analysis confirms the complementarity of infrastructure with institutions and regional integration, which implies that these factors act as a stimulus to improve the spillover effects of the infrastructure. This analysis supports infrastructure development policies to achieve sustained economic growth in Asia. Infrastructure is a “big push” for these economies to improve their economic status and eliminate poverty. The complementarity of institutions and regional integration requires these factors to be considered in planning infrastructure development policies, particularly for economic corridors.

Are Business Regulations Improving Economic Growth? Case Study between ASEAN and European Union

Economic activities require a transparent regulatory and policy environment that is accessible to all levels of society. This study aims to explain the impact of ease of doing business on economic growth in both ASEAN and the European Union since doing business indicators applied globally. Gross Domestic Product is used as a proxy variable for economic growth as Gross Domestic Product is an indicator to measure economic growth. This study uses a descriptive quantitative research model and uses multiple regressions to determine the effect of ease of doing business on economic growth in ASEAN and the European Union by comparing the result of each ASEAN and European Union. In this study it was found that in ASEAN, there are four indicators of doing business have significant impact to economic growth, while in the European Union five indicators have significant impact to economic growth.

Has Financial Integration of ASEAN and APEC Contributed to Economic Growth?

As globalization prevails, financial integration has been ongoing. The movement of globalization has occurred from the 1980s and a lot of attention has been paid to occurred issues from of aspects. This study focuses on whether financial integration in ASEAN and APEC promotes economic growth or not. These areas have attempted to tackle integration and cooperation and to achieve growth. Also, a global financial crisis occurred in the 1990s, and the 2000s made policy makers and business persons aware of potential contagion. Globalization sometimes has caused a contagion of financial crises. On the other hand, cooperation promoted recovery from the damaged economy in some areas. So the pros and cons have been examined, however, a definite answer whether financial integration is correct or not remains unknown. Using available data, empirical analyses are conducted in this study to examine the relationship between financial integration and economic growth. The empirical results show that financial integration has contributed to economic growth in ASEAN, however, this result cannot be applied clearly to APEC. The variety of participating countries in APEC may have affected the result. Moreover, there are some problems to be solved for sound economic growth for these areas.

Gender Equality and Economic Growth in Asia and Africa: Empirical Analysis of Developing and Least Developed Countries

In recent years, politicians, theorists and academics have debated the impact of gender inequality on economic growth. Some studies show a negative relationship between the two variables, while other studies show a positive relationship. The purpose of this study is to investigate the impact of gender inequality on economic growth in developing and least developed countries in Asia and Africa. To evaluate the impact of gender equality on economic growth, I use panel vector autoregression analysis for data from 2010 to 2018. Next, the Arellano-Bond model was applied to provide a consistent estimation to support the previous model results. The results indicate a negative and significant relationship between the Gender Inequality Index and economic growth. Finally, through its results, this research aims to be a resource for stakeholders and policymakers to use in decisions regarding the promotion of gender equality and increases in social well-being in Asia and Africa.

Mobilization Campaigns and Rural Development

ABSTRACTMost accounts of East Asian economic growth have focused on the role of developmental states in successful industrialization. This article expands and challenges that framework by showing that rural policy was different from industrial policy. A key finding is that for more than a century, East Asian states have relied on mass mobilization campaigns rather than on technocratic planning and market-conforming institutions to achieve rural development. Based on case studies of Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, and China, the author argues that three main factors explain the rise of campaign states: revolutionary traditions, rural populism, and policy learning. A brief assessment of outcomes illustrates the payoffs and costs of campaigns and the practical considerations that drive them. The author’s analysis offers a new perspective on the East Asian model and disputes the widely held view that campaigns are tragic exercises in social control, demonstrating instead that they were central to the region’s rural transformation.

Nexus Between Carbon Emissions, Energy Consumption, Urbanization and Economic Growth in Asia: Evidence From Common Correlated Effects Mean Group Estimator (CCEMG)

This study investigates the dynamic relationships between carbon emission, urbanization, energy consumption, and economic growth in a panel of 42 Asian countries for the period 2000–2014 using dynamic common correlated effects panel data modeling. This study employs second generation cross-sectional Pesaran (J. Appl. Econom., 2007, 22(2), 265-312) panel unit root, Westerlund panel cointegration tests (Econom. Stat., 2007, 69(6), 709-748), and Pesaran’s (Econometrica, 2006, 74(4), 967-1012) common correlated effects mean group estimation technique. These approaches allow for cross-sectional dependence, and are robust to the presence of common factors, serial correlation, and slope heterogeneity. The Common Correlated Effect Mean Group test reveals a high average coefficient of 0.602 between carbon emission and energy consumption while low coefficients of 0.114 and 0.184 for the pairs of carbon emission-urbanization and carbon emission-GDP, respectively for the panel as a whole, suggesting a cointegration between carbon emission, urbanization, energy consumption, and economic growth. The results indicate that there is relatively high carbon emission especially for highly populated and geopolitical risk Asian countries in the short run. Findings reveal long run relationships between the variables, which is attributed to the on-going carbon taxation and energy prices. Our results are robust to PMG-ARDL estimator. Overall, these findings cast important implications on renewable energy policy and urban planning insights for the policymakers.

Exploration of the Impact of China’s Outward Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) on Economic Growth in Asia and North Africa along the Belt and Road (B&R) Initiative

This empirical study has examined the impact of Chinese investments, namely infrastructure, energy, services, other investment sectors, and trade openness on the economies of the 25 Asian and North African countries along with the Belt and Road (B&R) Initiative for a period of 2007 to 2016 using the Johansen Fisher Panel Cointegration Test, Panel Dynamic Ordinary Least Squares (PDOLS) model, and the Toda and Yamamoto technique for testing causality. The findings revealed cointegration among the variables and that the impact of Chinese investments on economic growth in the host countries is positive, but it has a weaker effect, to a certain extent, in all sectors of the host countries while trade openness positively impacts the countries. Furthermore, there is evidence of a unidirectional causality between some FDI (foreign direct investment) economies while the investment in services and other sectors does not cause economic growth in the host countries. Based on the results, the paper proposes that the host countries increase the FDI in the sector of infrastructure, energy, and technology to enhance their economies.

Dynamic links among tourism, energy consumption, and economic growth: Empirical evidences from top tourist destination countries in Asia

Achieving sustainable development is the prime objective of every government. Based on Solow's theoretical proposition, this study attempts to explore empirically the linkages between tourism, energy consumption, and economic growth, for the top nine Asian travel and tourism countries including Indonesia between 1995 and 2018. The fully modified ordinary least squares method and Granger's causality approaches are implemented for empirical analysis. The empirical result reveals that tourism has a statistically positive impact on economic growth in Asia's top nine travel and tourist countries. Moreover, energy consumption, exports, and savings have also a positive and statistically significant impact on economic growth. The results of panel Granger causality tests demonstrate that there is a mutual interdependence between tourism, energy consumption, and economic growth in the selected panel country group. The empirical finding indicates the positive influences of tourism on economic growth; therefore, the government must strive to formulate a policy that would help to build infrastructural adequacy and promote tourism development in Asian countries.

EXAMINING THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN ELECTRICITY CONSUMPTION, FINANCIAL DEVELOPMENT AND ECONOMIC GROWTH IN ASEAN COUNTRIES: EVIDENCE FROM A BAYESIAN ANALYSIS

The literature has suggested that financial development and electricity consumption are key determinants of economic growth. However, existing studies usually was applied the frequentist inference, which is an outdated estimator. By applying the Bayesian approach via the Metropolis-Hasting and Gibbs samplers as the MCMC methods, the study aims to re-examine the impact of financial development and electricity consumption on economic growth in ASEAN+6 countries from 1980 to 2016. The obtained outcome shows that the impact of both financial development and electricity consumption is strong and positive on economic growth. There is a uni-directional causality running from economic growth to energy consumption, supported the Conversation hypothesis. Based on the empirical result, several policy implications are suggested for emerging countries, ASEAN+6 nations, in particular.Keywords: Financial development; Energy consumption; Economic growth; Bayesian; ASEAN countries.JEL Classifications: F43, O13, O47, Q42, Q43.DOI: https://doi.org/10.32479/ijeep.10642

Development of spontaneous vegetation on reclaimed land in Singapore measured by NDVI.

Population and economic growth in Asia has led to increased urbanisation. Urbanisation has many detrimental impacts on ecosystems, especially when expansion is unplanned. Singapore is a city-state that has grown rapidly since independence, both in population and land area. However, Singapore aims to develop as a 'City in Nature', and urban greenery is integral to the landscape. While clearing some areas of forest for urban sprawl, Singapore has also reclaimed land from the sea to expand its coastline. Reclaimed land is usually designated for future urban development, but must first be left for many years to stabilise. During the period of stabilisation, pioneer plant species establish, growing into novel forest communities. The rate of this spontaneous vegetation development has not been quantified. This study tracks the temporal trends of normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI), as a proxy of vegetation maturity, on reclaimed land sensed using LANDSAT images. Google Earth Engine was used to mosaic cloud-free annual LANDSAT images of Singapore from 1988 to 2015. Singapore's median NDVI increased by 0.15 from 0.47 to 0.62 over the study period, while its land area grew by 71 km2. Five reclaimed sites with spontaneous vegetation development showed variable vegetation covers, ranging from 6% to 43% vegetated cover in 2015. On average, spontaneous vegetation takes 16.9 years to develop to a maturity of 0.7 NDVI, but this development is not linear and follows a quadratic trajectory. Patches of spontaneous vegetation on isolated reclaimed lands are unlikely to remain forever since they are in areas slated for future development. In the years that these patches exist, they have potential to increase urban greenery, support biodiversity, and provide a host of ecosystem services. With this knowledge on spontaneous vegetation development trajectories, urban planners can harness the resource when planning future developments.

Fiscal Causal Hypotheses and Panel Cointegration Analysis for Sustainable Economic Growth in ASEAN

Fiscal Causal Hypotheses and Panel Cointegration Analysis for Sustainable Economic Growth in ASEAN

The Impact of Economic Growth, Foreign Direct Investment, Urbanization, Fossils Fuel Consumption on Environmental Degradation in Emerging Asian Economies

The current examination ascertains the impact of foreign direct investment, urbanization, economic growth, fossil fuel consumption on carbon emissions in eleven rising Asian economies. Panel data has been scrutinized from 1990 to 2018, and (ARDL)/PMG model is executed. The outcomes of the model exemplify that in these growing Asian economies, the triumph to cuitivate economic growth, foreign direct investment, urbanization and fossil fuels are bestowing CO2 emissions and deteriorating the environmental circumstances at the regional level. Moreover, the conclusions emphasis that foreign direct investment is a source of environmental humiliation and increases carbon emissions at the regional level. Furthermore, outcomes of the investigate also confirmes the existence of (EKC) in these eleven emerging Asian economies. The study also suggest that by lessening the consumption of fossil fuel energy and encouragement of an environmental responsive economic growth policy will be suitable for the affluence in these emerging developing Asian economies and also the rest of world.

Does inflow of foreign direct investment stimulate economic growth? Evidence from developing countries

This paper examines the effect of foreign direct investment (FDI) inflows on host country’s economic growth for a group of 45 developing countries for the period 1990–2014. Using the pooled mean group (PMG) regression method, we estimate the long-run and the short-run impact of FDI inflows on growth rate of GDP per capita. The PMG regression results suggest that the growth rate of GDP per capita and its covariates are cointegrated, implying the presence of a long-run equilibrium relationship among the variables. Our results suggest that FDI inflows have significant positive impact on economic growth of the recipient countries both in the long-run and in the short-run. We find that the long-run effect of FDI inflows on economic growth is higher in the emerging market economies as compared to the non-emerging market economies. FDI inflows have significant positive effect on the long-run economic growth in Asia and Africa region.

Towards rule-based institutions and economic growth in Asia? Evidence from the Asian Financial Crisis 1997–1998

Due to the severity of the Asian Financial Crisis 1997–1998, South Korea, Indonesia, and Thailand resorted to an International Monetary Fund (IMF) bailout. In exchange, the IMF demanded a series of reforms intended to promote rule-based institutions generally found in advanced Western economies, such as the rule of law. Using panel data analysis from 1982 to 2007, we test empirically whether judicial independence, one of the more fundamental rule-based institutions, can positively explain the growth of these countries after the crisis, and find the impact of reforms to be limited. To understand why, we use South Korea as an example to show that top-down reforms by the government prevented a shift towards a rule-based economy. Due to the government selectively bailing out big businesses, big businesses that survived the crisis captured market shares once owned by the dissolved big businesses, becoming too powerful for the government to regulate. This research uses Soifer’s theoretical framework on critical junctures.

Neoconservatives and Neo-Confucians: East Asian Growth and the Celebration of Tradition

This article explores the influence of East Asia's economic growth on the evolution of American neoconservative thought in the 1970s and 1980s. It traces how prominent neoconservative thinkers—Nathan Glazer, Peter L. Berger, Herman Kahn, Michael Novak, and Lawrence E. Harrison—developed the claim that the region's prosperity stemmed from its alleged Confucian tradition. Drawing in part from East Asian leaders and scholars, they argued that the region's growth demonstrated that tradition had facilitated, rather than hampered, the development of a distinct East Asian capitalist modernity. The article argues that this Confucian thesis helped American neoconservatives articulate their conviction that “natural” social hierarchies, religious commitment, and traditional families were necessary for healthy and free capitalist societies. It then charts how neoconservatives mobilized this interpretation of Confucian East Asia against postcolonial critiques of capitalism, especially dependency theory. East Asia, they claimed, demonstrated that poverty and wealth were determined not by patterns of welfare, structural exploitation, or foreign assistance, but values and culture. The concept of Confucian capitalism, the article shows, was central to neoconservatives’ broad ideological agenda of protecting political, economic, and racial inequality under the guise of values, culture, and tradition.

The Effect of Control Corruption, Political Stability, Macroeconomic Variables on Asian Economic Growth

This study aims to analyze the correlation between control corruption and political stability, macro variables on economic growth in Asia. Study population consist of 47 countries, employing secondary data from Worldwide Governance Indicators, World Development Indicators, and United Nations Development Programme. The data were analyzed using dynamic panel regression (GMM) during 2002-2018 period with Stata 14 software. The result of the analysis shows control corruption and political stability positively affect economic growth. Macroeconomic variables consist of foreign direct investment and human capital positively affects economic growth. While government size has no significant effect on economic growth. The findings of this study confirms that economic growth can be increased through reducing levels of corruption, strong political stability, increase capital inflow, optimally government consumption especially increasing portion of the education budget and creating jobs widely.

The Effect of Control Corruption, Political Stability, Macroeconomic Variables on Asian Economic Growth

This study aims to analyze the correlation between control corruption and political stability, macro variables on economic growth in Asia. Study population consist of 47 countries, employing secondary data from Worldwide Governance Indicators, World Development Indicators, and United Nations Development Programme. The data were analyzed using dynamic panel regression (GMM) during 2002-2018 period with Stata 14 software. The result of the analysis shows control corruption and political stability positively affect economic growth. Macroeconomic variables consist of foreign direct investment and human capital positively affects economic growth. While government size has no significant effect on economic growth. The findings of this study confirms that economic growth can be increased through reducing levels of corruption, strong political stability, increase capital inflow, optimally government consumption especially increasing portion of the education budget and creating jobs widely.

Tackling Private Over-Indebtedness in Asia

One consequence of interest rates remaining “too low for too long” since the Global Financial Crisis is the buildup in private leverage in emerging economies. These vulnerabilities have been laid bare by the COVID-19 shock. This paper employs the growth at risk framework (Adrian, Boyarchenko, and Giannone, 2019) to examine how different types of private leverage present risks to future GDP growth in Asian economies. We find evidence that private leverage can boost GDP growth in the near term, but can increase the risks of low growth over the medium term. For our sample, we also find that household debt poses a larger drag on future GDP growth than corporate debt. In the second part of the paper, we provide an overview of a strategy for prevention and resolution of over-indebtedness, with a focus on legal tools, and with considerations to account for the consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic. Using a novel cross-country survey, we examine the role of legal techniques to prevent and treat corporate and household over-indebtedness, benchmarking those in ASEAN-5, China, India, Japan and Korea against international best practice. The analysis can inform a country-specific prioritized approach to strengthening legal frameworks.

THE ROLE OF ENERGY SECURITY IN ECONOMIC GROWTH IN ASIA: QUANTITATIVE ANALYSIS AND POLICY OPTIONS

Rapid economic growth in Asia recently has been driving global energy demand and prices. However, little progress has been made concerning the region’s energy security. To assess Asia’s progress in energy security and its impact on real income per capita growth, the 4-As energy security framework — energy availability, applicability, affordability and acceptability dimensions — is integrated into the cross-country generalized method of moments (GMM) model and empirically estimated using data from 20 Asian countries (1995–2015). Results indicate that energy security measured by expanding renewable energy use, increase in electricity access and electric power consumption per capita growth are positively associated with real income per capita growth, while a larger share of imported energy and higher energy intensity hinder growth. Meanwhile, climate security is included in the energy security framework; the results suggest that an increase in CO2 emissions has a negative impact on economic growth. Possible policy implications for improving energy security in Asia are discussed in the conclusion.

Influence of Competitiveness, Corruption and Foreign Direct Investment on Economic Growth of Asean Developing Countries

The purpose of this study is to look at the condition of the country's competitiveness and its influence on ASEAN economic growth. The data used is panel data consisting of time series data for 2009 - 2019 and cross section of five ASEAN countries with the highest level of competitiveness. The variables used are economic growth, competitiveness, corruption perception index, political risk, and foreign direct investment. The analysis tool used is panel data regression, the Random Effect Model (REM). The results show that competitiveness and foreign direct investment have a positive and significant effect on economic growth, while the corruption perception index has no effect on economic growth in 5 ASEAN countries.