|
on South East Asia |
| By: | Yoshino, Naoyuki (Asian Development Bank Institute); Morgan, Peter J. (Asian Development Bank Institute) |
| Abstract: | Financial inclusion is receiving increasing attention as having the potential to contribute to economic and financial development while at the same time fostering more inclusive growth and greater income equality. However, although substantial progress has been made, there is still much to achieve. East Asia and the Pacific and South Asia combined account for 55% of the world’s unbanked adults, mainly in India and the People’s Republic of China (PRC). This paper surveys the experience of a number of advanced and Asian emerging economies to assess factors affecting the ability of low-income households and small firms to access financial services, including financial literacy, financial education programs and financial regulatory frameworks, and identify policies that can improve their financial access while maintaining financial stability. It aims to identify successful experiences and important lessons that can be adopted by other emerging economies. This analysis is based on studies of the experiences of Germany, the United Kingdom, Bangladesh, India, Indonesia, the Philippines, Sri Lanka and Thailand. The study aims to take a practical and holistic approach to issues related to financial inclusion. For example, innovative methods of promoting financial access, such as mobile phone banking and micro-finance, require corresponding innovations in regulatory frameworks, perimeters and capacity. Moreover, programs in the areas of financial education and consumer protection are needed to enable households and small firms to take full advantage of improvements in financial access. |
| Keywords: | financial inclusion; banks; financial regulation; payments systems; small and medium-sized enterprises; financial education |
| JEL: | G21 G28 I22 O16 |
| Date: | 2016–10–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ris:adbiwp:0591&r=sea |
| By: | Bukhari, Mahnoor; Munir, Kashif |
| Abstract: | The primary objective of this study is to investigate the relationship between globalization and income inequality in selected Asian economies i.e. Bangladesh, China, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Pakistan, Philippines, Sri Lanka, Singapore, South Korea and Thailand. The specific objectives of this study are to analyze the relationship between trade globalization, financial globalization and technological globalization on income inequality. For attaining these objectives this study used panel data for selected Asian countries from 1980 to 2014 for trade and technological globalization model and from 1990 to 2014 for financial globalization model. The study used pooled OLS and instrumental variable least square technique for estimation. Results show that trade and technological globalization in the selected Asian economies significantly contributes to reduce income inequality while financial globalization increase income inequality. Education has inverse impact on income inequality while foreign direct investment has positive relationship with income inequality. Therefore, the study suggest that government should promote education, invest in research and development activities, establish efficient financial system, reduce trade restrictions and provide subsidies that help to increase the volume of trade. |
| Keywords: | Trade, Financial, Technological Globalization, Income Inequality, Panel Data, Asia |
| JEL: | C23 F62 O53 |
| Date: | 2016–09–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:74248&r=sea |
| By: | Gokan, Toshitaka; Kuroiwa, Ikuo; Laksanapanyakul, Nuttawut; Ueki, Yasushi |
| Abstract: | Examining the spatial structure of clusters is essential for deriving regional development policy implications. In this study, we identify the manufacturing clusters in Cambodia, the Lao People's Democratic Republic, and Thailand, using two indices—global extent (GE) and local density (LD)—as proposed by Mori and Smith (2013). We also analyze four different combinations of these indices to highlight the spatial structures of industrial agglomerations. Since industrial clusters often spread over administrative boundaries, the GE and LD indices—along with cluster mapping—display how the detected clusters fit into specific spatial structures. |
| Keywords: | Manufacturing industries, Industrial structure, Industrial agglomeration, Cluster analysis, Cambodia, Lao PDR, Thailand |
| JEL: | L60 R12 R14 |
| Date: | 2016–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:jet:dpaper:dpaper617&r=sea |
| By: | Souksavanh VIXATHEP (Graduate School of Economics, Kyoto University); Nobuaki MATSUNAGA (Graduate School of International Cooperation Studies, Kobe University) |
| Abstract: | Entrepreneurship is viewed as an important mechanism for economic development. It helps entrepreneurs overcome most of the constraints in businesses, encourages innovation, and contributes to employment generation and welfare improvement. The paper addresses the issue of entrepreneurial contribution to economic development at the micro level in Vietnam. The study examines the impact of entrepreneurial human capital on firm's performance (value added, total factor productivity (TFP)) in micro and small enterprises (MSEs). The analysis reveals that owner's formal education (up to upper secondary education) contributes to enhancement of firm value added and TFP in micro businesses. Entrepreneur's technical specialization, including advanced vocational training, university and post-graduate education, enhances performance of small enterprises, but shows some sign of over-education for micro businesses. Accumulated entrepreneurial experience, in form of occupation and self-employment experience, proves crucial for firm performance. Geographical advantages favoring MSEs located in the major metropolitan areas and sectoral advantages favoring 'trade and services' prove to be significant. The findings highlight the importance of human capital in nurturing entrepreneurship and fostering economic development at the micro-level. |
| Keywords: | entrepreneurship; human capital; social capital; small business; Vietnam |
| JEL: | C01 D22 L26 |
| Date: | 2015–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:kcs:wpaper:29&r=sea |
| By: | Hamanaka, Shintaro; Jusoh, Sufian |
| Abstract: | Existing studies on mutual recognition agreements (MRAs) are mostly based on the European experience. In this paper, we will examine the ongoing attempts to establish a mutual recognition architecture in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and seek to explain the region's unique approach to MRAs, which can be classified as a "hub and spoke" model of mutual recognition. On one hand, ASEAN is attempting to establish a quasi-supranational ASEAN-level mechanism to confer "ASEAN qualification" effective in the entire ASEAN region. On the other hand, ASEAN MRAs respect members' national sovereignty, and it is national authorities, not ASEAN institutions, who have the ultimate power to approve or disapprove the supply of services by ASEAN qualification holders. Such a mixed approach to mutual recognition can be best understood as a centralized mechanism for learning-by-doing, rather than centralized recognition per se. |
| Keywords: | International agreements, International economic integration, International trade, Regionalism, Mutual recognition agreement (MRA), Professional qualifications, Trade in services, Hub and spoke, Supranational mechanism, ASEAN |
| JEL: | F15 F53 F55 |
| Date: | 2016–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:jet:dpaper:dpaper618&r=sea |
| By: | Dang, Trang; Nguyen, Cuong |
| Abstract: | This paper examines whether interethnic marriage of parents is associated with educational performance of children in Vietnam using data from the 2009 Population and Housing Census. It finds that interethnic marriage of parents is associated with educational attainment of children in Vietnam. Children with parents from different ethnic groups tend to have better education and lower disability incidence than children with parents from one ethnic minority group. |
| Keywords: | Health, education, disability, children, interethnic marriage |
| JEL: | I1 I2 |
| Date: | 2015–09–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:74144&r=sea |
| By: | Vutha Hing; PHANN Dalis; Roth T.M.S Vathana; Sreymom Sum |
| Abstract: | Using propensity score matching with the 2009 Cambodia Socio-Economic Survey of households, this study examines the effects of remittances on indicators of household wellbeing: poverty, consumption and labour participation of non-migrant members. The theoretical framework is built upon a “new economics of labour migration”, hypothesising that the emigration decision is jointly determined by households and individual migrants and that remittances basically represent a form of contractual arrangements between them. The results indicate that households with at least one migrant member and which receive remittances could reduce their poverty headcount rate by 3-7 percentage points vis-à-vis their matched controls. Remittances also reduce depth and severity of poverty of treated households. On the contrary, remittances generate a 5-9 percent “dependency effect” on working age adults who are employed due to reduced weekly hours worked. The impact of remittances on labour participation and salary income is, however, vulnerable to unobservable factors. |
| Keywords: | Remittances, Propensity Score Matching, Cambodia, Poverty, Labour Participation, New Economics of Labour Migration, Migrant-sending households |
| Date: | 2015 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:lvl:pmmacr:2015-06&r=sea |
| By: | Hoang Xuan Trung; Luca Tiberti |
| Abstract: | This paper examines the impact of the trade liberalization of chemical fertilisers on the allocation of labour between nonfarm and farm sectors in rural Vietnam during the period 1993-1998. To do that, we use a panel dataset controlling for fixed effects and instrumenting the volume of chemical fertilisers and the exogenous change in fertilisers’ prices is exploited. The study shows that a higher volume of chemical fertilisers reduces the employment of rural households in the nonfarm sector and increases labour participation in farm activities. A larger use of chemical fertilisers would also generate other complementary effects such as a higher demand for organic fertilisers, increased on-farm hired labour, a bigger cultivated area with chemical fertilisers and a larger number of crops grown with chemical fertilisers. Also, we find that a larger use of chemical fertilisers creates larger incentives for on-farm family labour for small landholders compared to those with larger agricultural land, and that the magnitude of the effects is relatively larger for new farmers. |
| Keywords: | instrumental variable, chemical fertiliser price, nonfarm activity, rural Vietnam. |
| JEL: | F16 H31 J01 |
| Date: | 2016 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:lvl:pmmacr:2016-11&r=sea |
| By: | William Berthomière (MIGRINTER - Migrations internationales, espaces et sociétés - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - Université de Poitiers); Mathilde Maurel (CES - Centre d'économie de la Sorbonne - UP1 - Université Panthéon-Sorbonne - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, FERDI - Fondation pour les Etudes et Recherches sur le Développement International - FERDI); Yann Richard (PRODIG - Pôle de recherche pour l'organisation et la diffusion de l'information géographique - IRD - Institut de Recherche pour le Développement - UP4 - Université Paris-Sorbonne - EPHE - École pratique des hautes études - UP7 - Université Paris Diderot - Paris 7 - AgroParisTech - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - UP1 - Université Panthéon-Sorbonne) |
| Abstract: | The issue of integration is key in the literature about migration. It refers to a set of public policies aiming at integrating foreign populations in a given society. This paper aims at investigating the relationships between the integration of four communities installed in France (Algerian, Portugese, Turkish, and Vietnamese) and the presence of associations. The methodology is rooted on two approaches, quantitative economics and geography. It uses a new database, extracted from the Journal Officiel and several surveys, noticeably TeO. In a first step we ask whether the regional distribution and the density of associations explain the degree of integration of the migrants stemming from the four communities. In a second step we test whether memberships into an association increases or decreases the adoption of oppositional identities and if the latter influences the integration via the access to employment. |
| Abstract: | Le thème de l'intégration est un des principaux angles d'attaque de la littérature scientifique consacrée à l'immigration. Il désigne un ensemble de politiques mises en œuvre par les pouvoirs publics pour que des populations soient correctement insérées dans une société donnée. Dans cet article, l'objectif est de voir s'il existe une relation entre l'intégration des personnes appartenant à quatre communautés présentes en France (Algériens, Portugais, Turcs, Vietnamiens) et l'existence d'associations. La méthode repose sur le croisement d'une approche géographique et d'une approche économique, en mobilisant des données inédites issues du Journal Officiel et de plusieurs enquêtes démographiques, notamment l'enquête TeO. On tente de voir d'abord si les variations régionales de la densité des réseaux associatifs communautaires explique la plus ou moins grande intégration des immigrés de ces quatre groupes. Ensuite, en utilisant plusieurs modèles, on tente de voir si l'appartenance à une ou à des associations non communautaires renforce l'adhésion des immigrés à des valeurs oppositionnelles au modèle culturel du pays d'accueil et si cela a une influence au moins indirecte sur leur intégration par l'accès à l'emploi. |
| Keywords: | associations,migration,integration,applied economics,geography,immigration,intégrations,économie appliquée,approche géographique |
| Date: | 2015–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:journl:halshs-01157873&r=sea |
| By: | Gokan, Toshitaka; Kuroiwa, Ikuo; Nakajima, Kentaro; Sakata, Shozo |
| Abstract: | The formation of industrial clusters is critical for sustained economic growth. We identify the manufacturing clusters in Vietnam, using the Mori and Smith (2013) method, which indicates the spatial pattern of industrial agglomerations using the global extent (GE) and local density (LD) indices. Spatial pattern identification is extremely helpful because industrial clusters are often spread over a wide geographical area and the GE and LD indices—along with cluster mapping—display how the respective clusters fit into specific spatial patterns. |
| Keywords: | Manufacturing industries, Industrial structure, Industrial agglomeration, Cluster analysis, Vietnam |
| JEL: | L60 R12 R14 |
| Date: | 2016–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:jet:dpaper:dpaper616&r=sea |
| By: | Runhuan Feng; Alexey Kuznetsov; Fenghao Yang |
| Abstract: | Exponential functionals of Brownian motion have been extensively studied in financial and insurance mathematics due to their broad applications, for example, in the pricing of Asian options. The Black-Scholes model is appealing because of mathematical tractability, yet empirical evidence shows that geometric Brownian motion does not adequately capture features of market equity returns. One popular alternative for modeling equity returns consists in replacing the geometric Brownian motion by an exponential of a Levy process. In this paper we use this latter model to study variable annuity guaranteed benefits and to compute explicitly the distribution of certain exponential functionals. |
| Date: | 2016–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arx:papers:1610.00577&r=sea |
| By: | Marta De Philippis (Banca d'Italia); Federico Rossi (London School of Economics) |
| Abstract: | Results from international standardized tests show large cross-country differences in students' performances. Where do these gaps come from? This paper argues that differences in cultural environments and parental inputs may be of great importance. We show that the school performance of second-generation immigrants is similar to that of native students in their parents' countries of origin. This holds true even after accounting for different family background characteristics, schools attended and selection into immigration. We quantify the overall contribution of various parental inputs to the observed cross-country differences in PISA test performance and show that they account for between 12% and 30% of the total variation and for most of the gap between East Asia and other regions. This pattern calls into questions whether PISA scores should be interpreted only as a quality measure for a country's educational system, since they actually contain an important intergenerational and cultural component. |
| Keywords: | parental inputs, school quality |
| JEL: | I25 O43 F22 Z1 J61 |
| Date: | 2016–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bdi:wptemi:td_1079_16&r=sea |
| By: | James B. ANG (Division of Economics, Nanyang Technological University, 14 Nanyang Drive, Singapore 637332.); Per G. Fredriksson (Department of Economics, University of Louisville, Louisville, KY 40292, USA.) |
| Abstract: | This paper investigates how the implementation of modern climate change policies is related to former colonies' length of state history and their legal heritage. We argue that countries with longer statehood experience around the time of colonization were better equipped to implement the legal philosophies transplanted by their colonial powers. Therefore, the implications of receiving British common law versus French civil law should be particularly important in countries with a greater accumulated history of statehood. Using a cross section of up to 78 former colonies, our results provide support for this hypothesis. In particular, our estimates demonstrate that common law countries have weaker modern climate change policies than civil law countries and the difference is in ated by a longer statehood experience, measured by the length of state history from 1-1800 AD. Legal origin has no e ect in areas which, by the time of colonization, had no statehood experience. |
| Keywords: | Environmental policy; climate change; state antiquity; history; state capacity;legal origins; colonization. |
| JEL: | Q58 K23 O44 |
| Date: | 2016–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nan:wpaper:1610&r=sea |
| By: | Chengsi Wang (Department of Economics, University of Mannheim, L7 3-5, Mannheim, 68131, Germany); Julian Wright (Department of Economics, National University of Singapore, 10 Kent Ridge Crescent, 119260, Singapore) |
| Abstract: | Platforms use price parity clauses to prevent sellers charging lower prices when selling through other channels. Platforms justify these restraints by noting they are needed to prevent free-riding, which would undermine their incentives to invest in their platform. In this paper, we study the effect of price parity clauses on three different types of platform investment, and evaluate these restraints taking into account these investment effects. We find, that wide price parity clauses lead to excessive platform investment while without such price parity clauses there is insufficient platform investment. Even taking these investment effects into account, wide price parity clauses always lower consumer surplus and often lowers total welfare. |
| Keywords: | search, vertical restraints, intermediation, investment |
| JEL: | D40 L11 L14 L42 |
| Date: | 2016–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:net:wpaper:1617&r=sea |
| By: | Cortes, Patricia (Boston University); Pan, Jessica (National University of Singapore) |
| Abstract: | Gender differences in occupations account for a sizable portion of the persistent gender pay gap. This paper examines the relationship between the demand for long hours of work (as proxied for by the share of men working 50 or more hours per week) and skilled women's occupational choice. Exploiting variation across 215 occupations and four decades in the US, we find that the prevalence of overwork in an occupation significantly lowers the share of college educated young married women with children working in that occupation. These findings are robust to controlling for the occupational distribution of similarly aged males and married women with no children, suggesting that the prevalence of overwork reduces the desirability of the work environment for women with family responsibilities and is not merely proxying for other demand side shocks. Similar results are obtained using a panel of European countries. |
| Keywords: | long hours, overwork, occupational choice, gender |
| JEL: | J16 J24 J22 |
| Date: | 2016–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp10225&r=sea |
| By: | Duffie, Darrell (Stanford University); Qiao, Lei (National University of Singapore); Sun, Yeneng (National University of Singapore) |
| Abstract: | We demonstrate the existence of a continuum of agents conducting directed random searches for counterparties, and characterize the implications. Our results provide the first probabilistic foundation for static and dynamic directed random search (including the matching function approach) that is commonly used in the search-based models of financial markets, monetary theory, and labor economics. The agents' types are shown to be independent discrete-time Markov processes that incorporate the effects of random mutation, random matching with match-induced type changes, and with the potential for enduring partnerships that may have randomly timed break-ups. The multi-period cross-sectional distribution of types is shown to be deterministic via the exact law of large numbers. |
| Date: | 2015–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ecl:stabus:3359&r=sea |