Major Asian Research Articles

Similarities in the Consumption Patterns of the Five Asian Tigers

The five countries of Hong Kong, Japan, Korea, Singapore and Taiwan are considered to be the major Asian economic ‘Tigers’ behind Asia's growth in the late 1900s. In this paper, we analyze the consumption patterns of these five countries, using the most recent consumption data and employing the system‐wide approach. We find that the consumption data from these five countries support a number of empirical regularities, including the ‘law of demand’ and ‘Engel's law’. Based on the estimation results, we find that in all five countries, food, housing and medical care (except in Taiwan) are necessities, while clothing, durables (except in Singapore) and transport are luxuries. Demand for all the commodities is price inelastic. Furthermore, we find that the demand hypothesis, homogeneity, is acceptable for all five countries while Slutsky symmetry is acceptable only for Hong Kong, Singapore and Taiwan. We also find that the preference‐independence hypothesis is acceptable for all countries except Japan. Overall, consumption patterns of consumers appear to be similar across the five countries, while some differences exist between Japan and the other four countries.

Preliminary Results for International Tourism in 2002; Air Transport after 11 September

Preliminary results for 2002, as presented by the World Tourism Organization (WTO), show a reasonable improvement in tourism demand with international tourism worldwide increasing by an estimated 3%. Asia and the Pacific and the Middle East led growth, Africa grew above the world average and Europe below, while the Americas slightly decreased. In the second part of this issue's Databank, the author takes a closer look at the evolution of air transport after 11 September 2001, drawing on data from ICAO and various regional airline associations. The monthly traffic data reported by ATA, AEA and AAPA, the regional associations for, respectively, the major North American, European and Asian airlines, constitute a valuable source of timely information on the short-term evolution of this part of the tourism flow over the last few years.

Hoglex Demand Systems and Welfare Policy in Major Asean Developing Countries: A Bayesian Analysis Using Expenditure Unit Records

The HOGLEX demand system (Tran Van Hoa (1983, 1985)) is integrable and flexible in the sense that it is based on utility maximization and encompasses most other well-known demand systems (e.g., LINEX, AIDS) in the literature on consumer behaviour (Laitinen et al. (1983)). HOGLEX studies to date have been based on conventional OLS or MLE methods and panel aggregate income and price data, and restricted to investigating consumption patterns. The paper elaborates on three important subsets of the HOGLEX demand system and, using household expenditure unit records from two major ASEAN developing countries (i.e., Thailand and the Philippines), estimates by the Bayesian method these subsets for 20 socio-demographic cohorts, and discusses their substantial implications in social security and welfare policy analysis. We also estimate the models in the more practical case of measurement errors in total expenditure and compare the results with those without measurement errors.

Transition Pathways and Democratic Consolidation in Post‑Marcos Philippines

Introduction Sixteen years after the restoration of formal democratic rule in the Philippines with the fall of the Marcos dictatorship in 1986, the country faces a difficult and contentious process of democratic consolidation. The country continues to contend with armed challenges from a communist-led movement and various Muslim movements, with no easy resolution in sight. In a region that was the world's fastest growing economy before the Asian economic crisis, the Philippine economy has also lagged far behind the major ASEAN countries. Two presidential turnover elections, normally important indicators of democratic consolidation, took place in 1992 and 1998. However, this process took an unexpected twist in 2001 when a massive people's mobilization, climaxed by the military's withdrawal of support, deposed the elected incumbent President, Joseph Estrada, less than halfway to his six-year term. In turn, Estrada's successor, former Vice-President Gloria Arroyo, barely three months in office, had to quell a violent march on the presidential palace by enraged Estrada supporters from the poorest classes. The broad features of the problems and challenges of democratic consolidation in the Philippines include a volatile ensemble of the following factors: a cycle of contentious politics in a state with weak capacities and political institutions, a slow-growth economy, and a vibrant but contentious civil society. In this article, three interrelated problems are addressed. First, the historical and social foundations of democratic rule in the country, and the political legacies of the transition process from authoritarian to democratic rule that continue to shape the dynamics of the consolidation process will be addressed. Second, the problems of the consolidation process focusing on the roots and dynamics of contentious politics in the country, particularly the role played by armed movements and militant social movements, will be examined. Third, new forces and players at work in the society in the process of state capability building and democratization will be identified. The Social and Historical Foundations of Democratic Rule in the Philippines To understand the complex interaction of state and society which underpins the process of modern democratic rule, one needs to situate this in the colonial context when the beginnings of limited partial elections were first introduced. Elections at the municipal level were introduced at the twilight of Spanish rule in the late nineteenth century but this was a highly restrictive process involving only the local elites. The revolutionary Philippine Republic, established in 1898, also had a system of elected municipal and provincial officials but its operation was cut short by the American colonial occupation. Reflecting the fusion of expediency and ideals of the time, the American colonial government introduced a system of regular elections starting at the local levels of government in 1901, members of the national legislature in 1907, and a president during the Commonwealth period to facilitate colonial rule by co-opting the native elites. (1) The American colonial strategy of gradually putting the native elites into power through electoral contests had the following major results. (2) By prioritizing the establishment of the institutions of representative electoral democracy, the colonial government legitimized elite rule, further entrenching the power of local elite families who were able to control the electoral process. This preoccupation with electoral democracy not only increased the power of local bosses and provincial lords but also encouraged patronage-driven corruption since the control of public resources became an essential tool for winning elections. Finally, this same preoccupation with electoral democracy undermined the building of autonomous national political institutions, such as the various agencies of the civilian bureaucracy and the police, resulting in a weak and politicized administrative state apparatus. …

Illegal Drug Use Among Asian American Youths in Dallas

Asian Americans have often been perceived as the “model minority” that is relatively immune to the problem of illegal drug use. This paper examines the patterns and determinants of illegal drug use among first and second-generation Asian American youths in Dallas-an area with rapid Asian population growth. Through a targeted survey, we have found a very high rate of cumulative drug use and a significant rate of current drug use. We have also detected some intra-Asian differences in drug abuse among major Asian groups. The results of our statistical analysis identify several possible correlates of current Asian drug abuse, including gender, differential association, parental warning, GPA, type of neighborhood, and high-school quality.

Financial Linkage in East Asian Countries since the East Asian Crisis

This paper reports the results of an empirical analysis of the linkage between the financial markets (foreign-exchange, stock, and bond markets) of Korea and the financial markets of the United States, Japan, and six major East Asian countries. A multivariate generalized autoregressive conditional heteroskedastic (GARCH) model is used to analyze 23 financial variables and identify time-varying correlation coefficients. A comparison of these values before and after the currency crisis yields four main conclusions. First, the interest rates in the major Asian countries, including Korea, are moving independently of one another. Second, the correlations between the Korean financial variables are higher after the crisis than before it, and the highest correlation is between the won/dollar exchange rate and the stock price index. The high linkage between the won/dollar exchange rate and stock price index signifies that short-term foreign investment flow influences the won/dollar exchange rate and the stock price index equally. Third, the impact of U.S. stock prices on Korean stock prices has increased by more than 20 times since the currency crisis, indicating a synchronization of the Korean stock market and the U.S. stock market. Fourth, the linkage between the stock market prices of Korea and those of Japan and several East Asian countries has been increasing since the currency crisis, whereas the Korean—U.S. stock market linkage has become somewhat less significant.

The making of Asian America through political participation

List of Abbreviations Introduction 1. Charting a Hidden Terrain: Historical Struggles for Inclusion and Justice Prior to the Era of Civil Rights and Electoral Politics 2. Constructing a Community That (Almost) Cannot Be: Contemporary Movements Toward Liberation and Empowerment--After 1965 3. Participation in Electoral Politics: Evolving Patterns in Hawaii and Mainland States 4. How Can We All Get Along? Cross-Racial Coalition-Building Possibilities and Barriers 5. What Ties That Bind? Comparing Political Attitudes and Behavior Across Major Asian American Groups 6. Linking Race, Ethnicity, Class, and Gender: Asian American Women and Political Participation Conclusion Appendix: Researching Asian American Political Behavior with Sample Surveys: A Methodological Report Notes References Index

Citizenship Acquisition of Post-1965 Asian Immigrants

This article examines the citizenship acquisition of major post-1965 Asian immigrant groups including Chinese, Filipinos, Japanese, Asian Indians, Koreans, and Vietnamese, using the PUMS data from the 1990 U.S. Census and an INS longitudinal data set. The analysis of data reveals a very high average naturalization rate of post-1965 Asian immigrants and a bifurcated pattern in citizenship acquisition among the six Asian immigrant groups. Furthermore, the results of a pooled logistic regression model indicate that the characteristics of Asian immigrants, ethnic communities, and countries of origin largely explain the naturalization of these Asian immigrants. Separate logistic regression models for the six groups further uncover similarities and differences in determinants of naturalization across groups. The findings suggest that in terms of naturalization rates new Asian immigrants are more assimilable than most immigrant groups, including European immigrants, and that in the foreseeable future Asian Americans are likely to become a swing vote at the local and possibly state levels and perhaps in presidential elections under some special circumstances. The findings also point to commonality and diversity in determinants of citizenship acquisition among post-1965 Asian immigrants.

The psychological effects of working in a racially hostile environment

Defines a racially hostile environment before going on to analyse factors that perpetuate such an environment. Studies four major groups, African Americans, Asian American, Latin American and North Americans before considering the psychological effects which such environments can have in employees. Outlines the characteristics of an at‐risk individual and looks at management responsibilities. Concludes with the legal ramifications.

Oil as a factor in indo‐gulf relations

World oil demand growth in the first decade of the 21st century is projected at an annual average rate of 1.5 per cent per annum, with India and China registering the strongest growth. Considering India's growth factor, and the consequent higher oil imports from the Gulf countries, it can be a much needed respite for the Gulf countries to revive their global oil business. India is expected to account for a high global oil demand growth rate in the coming years of the 21st century. It will have to depend more heavily on its most important source of oil imports i.e. the Gulf countries, for its sustenance. It should be noted that the search for market stability by the Gulf countries is their most important concern from the aspect of their oil export revenues. Overwhelming dependence on oil revenue by the Gulf countries has rendered them anxious to protect their earning capacity. Such earning capacity and consequent stability has now become vulnerable when most of the countries of the North are switching over to gas as their alternative source of energy. In context, Asian countries like India have become relevant for the Gulf countries, particularly due to their partially open economies and economic growth. India has now grown to depend more on oil and will become one of the major oil importers from the Gulf in the next few years. Thus, the stability of the Gulf countries can be established only with their effective cooperation with the growing major Asian oil importers, particularly India and China. In the coming years, then, efforts should be made to strengthen the interdependence and mutually beneficial relations between India and the oil exporting nations of the Gulf.

Asian American ethnic identification by surname

Few data sources include ethnicity-levelclassification for Asian Americans. However, it isoften more informative to study the ethnic groupsseparately than to use an aggregate Asian Americancategory, because of differences in immigrationhistory, socioeconomic status, health, and culture. Many types of records that include surnames of personsoffer the potential for inferential ethnicclassification. This paper describes the developmentof surname lists for six major Asian American ethnicgroups: Chinese, Japanese, Filipino, Korean, AsianIndian, and Vietnamese. The lists were based on SocialSecurity Administration records that include countryof birth. After they were compiled, the lists wereevaluated using an independent file of census records.The surname lists have a variety of applications forresearchers: identification of individuals to targetfor study participation; inference of ethnicity indata sources lacking ethnic detail; andcharacterization of the ethnic composition of apopulation.

Communication, National Identity and Cultural Identity in Singapore: Graphic Responses to the ‘Speak Mandarin’ Campaigns

Contemporary visual communication in Singapore is influenced by consumerism, global economics and popular culture. With a population comprising mainly Chinese, Malays and Indians, Singapore might be described as the ideal Benettonesque global village. Singaporeans are educated in English with their mother tongue a compulsory second language in primary and secondary schools. The increasing use of English for verbal and visual communication amongst the younger generation might be problematic for a government which positions Singapore competitively in an Asian region. The issue of national identity was addressed as early as 1965, when Singapore became an independent nation, at which time the government had to consider political and economic survival in a region bordered by Malaysia and Indonesia.The anticipated ascent of China as the major Asian economic power during the next decade holds implications for official Singaporean policy which, since the 1970s, has emphasized multiracial ‘Asian’ values and cultural traditions. One initiative has been to strategically realign Singaporeans for ‘Chineseness’ in the twenty-first century (e.g. the Speak Mandarin campaigns). This paper examines the socio-historical developments in Singaporean visual communication within the broader context of government strategies which has promoted a national ideology during the last 30 years.

Quality of Post-1965 Asian Immigrants

The reliance on an overall average approach to the labor market quality of immigrants could generate misleading information and biased policy recommendations. Focusing on Asian immigrants, this article demonstrates that much insight into immigrant quality can be gained via a diversity approach. Using the 5% PUMS data of the 1990 U.S. census, this paper shows that a common perception that the quality of post-1965 immigrants is lower than natives and earlier immigrants is invalid for post-1965 Asian immigrants. Unlike their Latin American counterparts, post-1965 Asian immigrants are generally more educated and skilled than natives. The educational level of post-1965 Asian immigrants surpasses that of their pre-1965 counterparts, despite their disadvantage in occupational attainment due to their shorter time of adaptation. Diversity also characterizes educational and occupational attainment across major post-1965 Asian immigrant groups and within each Asian immigrant group before and after 1965. Gender does not alter the advantage of post-1965 Asian immigrants over natives and their pre-1965 parallels in education, but it does complicate their occupational status. Policy implications of the findings are considered.

Ethnicity and Acculturation: Influences on Asian American Consumers' Purchase Decision Making for Social Clothes

The increased ethnic diversity of the U.S. population and especially the rapid growth of Asian American markets make it critical to assess the importance of developing marketing strategies specifically targeted to these particular ethnic market segments. These circumstances naturally call for an investigation of differences and similarities among various segments within the market to examine whether undifferentiated or diferentiated target marketing is necessary to reach various Asian American subgroups. This study examined the decision‐making patterns for purchasing social clothes of three major Asian American consumer groups (Chinese, Japanese, and Korean). Results showed that the three groups display distinct reference group influence, media influence, and store attribute importance and that these patterns differ depending on the level of acculturation. The findings also suggested implications for various marketing and advertising strategies aimed at the three Asian American consumer markets.

AFTA and the Global Track

The trade negotiations of the 1990s, and ASEAN's trade initiatives in particular, are proceeding on multiple tracks -- regional (AFTA), super-regional (APEC) and global (WTO). This article explores why parallel tracks seem to be necessary and how they might be better co-ordinated. A key factor behind these trends is the competition for foreign investment. Countries are attempting to attract regional production systems that require large markets and draw on diverse factors of production by pursuing joint liberalization with regional partners. At the same time, they are also trying to avoid costly trade diversion and to maximize market access for their exports by participating in larger regional and global liberalization efforts, and by liberalizing unilaterally. These multiple objectives find expression in open regionalism, which aims to achieve close regional integration but also extends liberalization to extra-regional partners. Evidence from quantitative modeling and from ASEAN's policy experience is used to support these observations. The ASEAN Free Trade Area (AFTA) represents a novel and important development in the international trading system. Taken in isolation, AFTA would be a bad idea - another example of a free trade agreement among developing countries that are too small and too similar to make up an efficient economic union. Many such agreements signed in Africa, Latin America and the Middle East in the 1950s and 1960s languish unimplemented, primarily because they could not offer their members sufficient benefits from specialization to overcome the costs of trade diversion. But AFTA is not an isolated policy; it forms part of a broader framework of marketoriented policy initiatives that Southeast Asian countries are pursuing to strengthen their trade relationships nationally, regionally and globally. Such parallel regional and multilateral efforts to improve the trade environment are emerging as the hallmark of the trading system of the 1990s. While the competing merits of regionalism and globalism continue to be debated in the academic literature, in practice they are now both fixtures of economic life. The key questions are why these tracks are parallel, and how they could be better co-ordinated. ASEAN's experience can help to provide answers to both questions. These trends in the international trading system result ultimately from technological and policy changes that have made it easier to conduct business across distances. The increasing mobility of capital, management and technology are changing the dominant strategy for growth and development. Some decades ago, the largely isolationist, continental model of development pursued by the United States in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries was supplanted by outward-oriented industrialization strategies commonly associated with Japan, Korea and Taiwan. But this model, which emphasized export development and the acquisition of foreign technology through licensing and reverse engineering, has now also given way to what might be called the ASEAN model - an even more intensive integration strategy based on foreign direct investment, outward processing and other types of partnerships with foreign firms. By opening markets and actively recruiting foreign investors, Singapore and Malaysia were the first practitioners of the ASEAN model. By the late 1980s, in the wake of the appreciation of the yen, all major ASEAN economies had essentially adopted this strategy. The ASEAN model is now widely imitated, most importantly by China. The economies following the model today typically go well beyond opening their economies to international linkages and are aggressively seeking to insert themselves into so-called regional and global production systems. The ASEAN development model calls for a strategic blend of national and international policies. On the one hand, an economy needs to pursue the familiar mix of market-friendly policies at home, and on the other, it needs to create or join integrated, diversified regional groupings that offer good opportunities for international production systems. …

Export demand for attributes of Australian wheat in Asia and the Middle East

Quality attributes of Australian wheat as demanded in the major Asian and Middle East markets are analyzed. The study employs an hedonic price function and a data sample from the Australian Wheat Board commercial contracts from 1984 to 1991. It is found that Japan is relatively quality conscious, while China and the Middle East markets pay little premium for quality. The sample is further divided into two separate time periods for testing the consistency in export demand for attributes and determining recent trends in premiums/discounts. There appears to have been a drop in the reward for quality in these markets since 1987, which may in part be explained by the US-EC wheat price war. The implications of the results for the Australian wheat economy are explored.

Possible role of dust-induced regional warming in abrupt climate change during the last glacial period

RECORDS from loess, sediments and ice cores indicate that the concentrations of tropospheric aerosols were higher in glacial periods than they are today, and that they peaked just before glacial terminations1–10. Energy-balance models have suggested11–14 that these high glacial aerosol loadings were a source of glacial cooling of the order of 1–3 °C. Here we present a different view based on three-dimensional climate simulations, which suggest that high glacial dust loading may have caused significant, episodic regional warming of over 5 °C downwind of major Asian and ice-margin dust sources. Less warming was likely close to and over the oceans because of local cooling by sea-salt and marine sulphate aerosols. Abrupt changes in dust loading are associated with the Dansgaard–Oeschger and Heinrich climate events and with glacial termination3,8,15, suggesting that dust-induced warming may have played a role in triggering these large shifts in Pleistocene climate.

In Search of Asian War Brides

Because of the long presence of U.S. soldiers in Asia, war-bride marriages involving servicemen and Asian women have been formed throughout the century. The literature, however, contains little empirically sound information on Asian war brides. This analysis develops a methodology to identify war brides and applies it to estimate the number of war brides from the six major Asian groups, using the national 1980 Public Use Microdata Sample. Further analysis comparing Asian war brides with other groups of Asian wives tends to support the traditional and lower socioeconomic images commonly associated with Asian war brides.

Indonesia

Indonesia, a major Southeast Asian archipelago nation of over 13,000 islands, is a member of ASEAN (Association of South East Asian Nations), together with Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, the Philippines, and Brunei. The main islands are Java, Sumatra, Kalimantan, Sulawesi, and Irian Jaya, with about 60 percent of the population living on Java. Jakarta, in West Java, is the capital of the country, the largest city (population of over 7 million), and the primary business center. Regional business centers are Surabaya in East Java, Medan in North Sumatra, and Ujung Padang in South Sulawesi. Indonesia has a population of 186 million, making it the fifth largest nation in the world. This population consists of 366 different ethnic groups, the largest being the Javanese (about half of the population), who also constitute the major group in government. The Chinese are a minority immigrant group who hold much of the economic power and

Corporate eponymy: a biographical dictionary of the persons behind the names of major American, British, European and Asian businesses

Corporate eponymy: a biographical dictionary of the persons behind the names of major American, British, European and Asian businesses