Managing fiscal policy—the revenues and spending of an individual nation—is among the most challenging tasks facing governments. Wealthy countries are constrained by complex regulation and taxation ...policies, while developing nations often face high inflation and trade taxes. In this volume, esteemed economists Takatoshi Ito and Andrew K. Rose, along with other leading experts, examine the problems and challenges facing public finance in East Asian developing countries as well as the United States and Japan. Fiscal Policy and Management in East Asia explores the inefficient tax systems of many developing countries, the relationship between public and private sector economic behavior, and the pressing issue of future obligations that governments have undertaken to provide pensions and health care for their citizens. Featuring both overviews and analyses of the countries discussed, this book will be of value to economists and policymakers seeking to understand fiscal policy in a global context.
The reform in Asian financial sectors—especially in banking and stock markets—has been remarkable since the currency crisis of 1997–98. East Asia is now a major player in international finance, ...providing serious competition to the more traditional financial centers of London and New York. Financial Sector Development in the Pacific Rim provides a rich collection of theoretical and empirical analyses of the growing capital markets in the region. Bringing together authors from various East Asian and Pacific nations, this volume examines the institutional factors influencing financial innovation, the consequences of financial development, widespread consolidation occurring through mergers and acquisitions, and the implementation of policy reform. Financial Sector Development in the Pacific Rim offers the comparative analysis necessary to answer broad questions about economic development and the future of Asia.
Considering the examples of Australia and the Pacific Rim, Growth and Productivity in East Asia offers a contemporary explanation for national productivity that measures contributions not only from ...capital and labor, but also from economic activities and relevant changes in policy, education, and technology. Takatoshi Ito and Andrew K. Rose have organized a group of collaborators from several Asian countries, the United States, and other parts of the globe who ably balance both macroeconomic and microeconomic study with theoretical and empirical approaches. Growth and Productivity in East Asia gives special attention to the causes for the unusual success of Australia, one of the few nations to maintain unprecedented economic growth despite the 1997 Asian financial crisis and the 2001 global downturn. A new database comprising eighty-four Japanese sectors reveals new findings for the last thirty years of sectoral productivity and growth in Japan. Studies focusing on Indonesia, Taiwan, and Korea also consider productivity and its relationship to research and development, foreign ownership, and policy reform in such industries as manufacturing, automobile production, and information technology.
A comparative perspective and an analytic approach grounded in mainstream economics distinguish this broad, accessible introduction to the Japanese economy. Throughout, Ito utilizes standard economic ...concepts in comparing Japan with the United States in terms of economic performances, underlying institutions, and government policies. Referring to cultural factors where appropriate, Ito subjects the basic facts about the Japanese economy to modern theoretical and empirical scrutiny, discussing macroeconomic growth, business cycles, monetary and fiscal policies, industrial structures and policies, the labor market, saving and investment, and international trade and finance. Ito reviews relevant aspects of Japan's history before launching into a broad analysis of the country's markets and its economic policies. He concludes with a look at such contemporary economic issues as the Japanese distribution system, Japanese asset prices, and US-Japan trade conflicts.
The absence of vibrant bondmarkets in East Asia was a significant contributor to the 1997-98 financial crisis. Ever since, the development of local bondmarkets has been a major objective of financial ...reforms in many East Asian economies. This book, the first of its kind, comes from the Finance Forum of the Pacific Economic Cooperation Council.
For more than three decades, the United States has conducted a unique Japan-specific economic policy. This policy was motivated by Japan's economic size and dynamism, fears that a unique "Japanese ...model of capitalism" enabled it to compete unfairly and threaten American prosperity during a period of prolonged US economic difficulties, and that the United States had unique capabilities to induce policy change in Japan due to its provision of security guarantees. * No More Bashing argues that these assessments are mistaken and that the United States should abandon its Japan-specific policy. Japan's declining relative importance in the world economy, the waning distinctiveness of its economic institutions, the failure of most recent US initiatives toward Japan, and the emergence of strengthened international institutions such as the World Trade Organization, all underscore the advisability of formulating new approaches to bilateral relations rooted more firmly in multilateral institutions. * This volume analyzes the outlook for the Japanese and US economies; their trade and financial relationships, including their trade negotiations over the past decade; the implications of new regional developments, most notably the rise of China and proposals for East Asian economic cooperation; and the roles of the United States and Japan in the provision of international public goods such as development assistance, environmental protection, and international security. It emphasizes that their trade agenda is increasingly moving beyond traditional border impediments toward the more politically sensitive issues of internal regulation and deregulation, such as competition policy. The authors propose a series of new initiatives to address these challenges and strengthen the multilateral system.
The contributions in this book provide a unique view of its emergence and growth in a number of different national settings in an area of the Third World where the industry is most advanced.
In The ...Political Economy of Japanese Monetary Policy, Cargill, Hutchison, and Ito investigate the formulation and execution of monetary and financial policies in Japan within a broad technical, political, and institutional context.Their emphasis is on the period since the collapse of the Bretton Woods system of fixed exchange rates in the early 1970s, and on the effects of policies and institutions in shaping the modern Japanese economy. The authors present basic themes and recent developments, as well as their own research findings.They also review and integrate the large literature in the area. They consider theoretical arguments and empirical evidence for each topic discussed.
Topics covered include Japan's low inflation record (despite the central bank's lack of formal independence from the government); politically motivated business cycles and the timing of elections; exchange rate policy and international policy coordination; the historical development of central banking; Japan's "bubble economy" of the 1980s; and the causes, magnitude, and regulatory responses to Japan's banking and financial crisis of the 1990s.
The rapid emergence of East Asia as an important geopolitical-economic entity has been one of the most visible and striking changes in the international economy in recent years. With that emergence ...has come an increased need for understanding the problems of interdependence. As a step toward meeting this need, the National Bureau of Economic Research joined with the Korea Development Institute to sponsor this volume, which focuses on the complexities of tax reform in a global economy. Experts from Taiwan, Korea, the Philippines, Japan, and Thailand, as well as the United States, Canada, and Israel examine the major tax programs of the 1980s and their domestic and international economic effects. The analyses reveal similarities between the United States and countries in East Asia in political constraints on policy making, and taken together they show how growing interdependence interacts with domestic economic and political concerns to affect issues as politically vital as tax reform. Economists, policymakers, and members of the business community will benefit from these studies.
The volume of capital flows between industrial and developing countries has grown dramatically in the past decade and has become a major issue in a world that is increasingly "globalized." Here ...Takatoshi Ito and Anne O. Krueger, two leading experts on this topic, have assembled a group of scholars who address different types of capital flows—bank lending, bonds, direct foreign investment—and the implications they hold for economic performance. With its particular focus on the Asian financial crises, this work presents a new model for policy makers everywhere in thinking about the role of private capital flows.
