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Working Paper
Measuring productivity growth in Asia: do market imperfections matter?
Recent research reports contradictory estimates of productivity growth for the newly industrialized economies (NIEs) of Asia. In particular, estimates using real factor prices find relatively rapid TFP growth; estimates using quantities of inputs and output find relatively low TFP growth. The difference is particularly notable for Singapore, where the difference is about 2-1/4 percentage-points per year. We show that about 2/3 of that difference reflects differences in estimated capital payments. We argue that these differences reflect economically interesting imperfections in output and ...
Working Paper
The new regionalism and Asia: impact and options
New regional initiatives abound, both outside Asia and within. Free Trade Areas in the West - notably NAFTA, its possible enlargement into an FTA of the Americas, and the European Union - have implications for Asia. Asian manufacturers will experience trade diversion, especially in textiles and apparel. Balancing such losses is the likelihood of gains from higher import demand caused by stronger economic growth in the Americas and Europe. ; New estimates of the gravity model of bilateral trade confirm the presence of implicit or de facto trade blocs in Asia and the Pacific, as in Europe ...
Journal Article
Banking system developments in the four Asian tigers
Journal Article
Going down: the Asian crisis and U.S. exports
The Asian financial and economic crisis has attracted much attention to the trade links among the United States and countries throughout Asia. Until the crisis, U.S. exports to East Asia were growing rapidly. In this article, Patricia S. Pollard and Cletus C. Coughlin examine the abrupt decline in exports and provide estimates of the sizes of the export shock both to the U.S. economy as a whole and to specific sectors. More than half the industries they studied experienced declines in exports to East Asia of more than 15 percent; however, focusing solely on the export data overstates the ...
Journal Article
The crisis that wasn't: Asia and the Eighth District
The East Asian financial crisis sent economies world wide reeling. So how did the Eighth District remain relatively unscathed?
Working Paper
The usual suspects? productivity and demand shocks and Asia-Pacific real exchange rates
The evidence for a productivity-based explanation for real exchange rate behavior of East Asian currencies is examined. Using sectoral output and employment data, relative prices and relative productivities are calculated for China, Indonesia, Japan, Korea, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, Taiwan and Thailand Time series regressions of the real exchange rate on relative prices indicate a role for relative prices for Indonesia, Japan and Korea. When examining real exchange rates and relative productivity ratios, one finds a relationship for Japan, Malaysia, the Philippines. Only when ...
Journal Article
Responding to Asia's crises