Number of results to display per page
Search Results
822. Japanese Economic Stagnation: Still in Neutral
- Author:
- Edward Lincoln
- Publication Date:
- 04-2003
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- The Brookings Institution
- Abstract:
- One of the discouraging problems in Northeast Asia over the past decade has been the lengthy malaise in the Japanese economy and the inability of government, business, and the public to forge effective solutions. In the decade since 1992, the average annual real (inflation-adjusted) economic growth rate has been only one percent—positive but very low and punctuated by four recessions in which gross domestic product (GDP) fell for at least two consecutive quarters. The financial sector is weighed down under an enormous amount of non-performing loans that has only grown larger over time. Meanwhile, Japan has become the first industrial country since the 1930s to experience deflation—a decline in the overall price level.
- Topic:
- Economics, International Political Economy, and International Trade and Finance
- Political Geography:
- Japan, Asia, and Northeast Asia
823. Chinese State, Chinese Society: Facing a New Century
- Author:
- Jae Ho Chung and Zhang Ye
- Publication Date:
- 04-2003
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- The Brookings Institution
- Abstract:
- The Sixteenth Congress of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) was convened during November 8-15, 2002. The Congress reconfirmed the Party's strong commitment to the three key tasks of achieving modernization, accomplishing national unification, and safeguarding world peace and development. The outgoing CCP General Secretary Jiang Zemin, on behalf of the Fifteenth Central Committee, emphasized the need for further political changes at the grassroots and presented the target of quadrupling China's gross domestic product (GDP) by 2020. Jiang also projected that China's armed forces would possess fewer but better troops “ with Chinese characteristics. ”
- Topic:
- Economics, International Political Economy, and International Trade and Finance
- Political Geography:
- China and Asia
824. Crisis on the Korean Peninsula
- Author:
- Richard Bush, Dean Nowowiejski, and Tomatsu Nakano
- Publication Date:
- 04-2003
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- The Brookings Institution
- Abstract:
- Most signs during the late summer and early fall of 2002 pointed to progress on the Korean peninsula. North Korean leader Kim Jong Il had finally grasped, it appeared, the need for international moderation and domestic reform. The United States seemed ready to respond in kind. But with the visit to Pyongyang in October of U.S. Assistant Secretary of State James Kelly – the first high-level contact since the Bush Administration came into office – the situation quickly unraveled. Instead of offering the “bold initiative” that was reportedly in the works, Kelly confronted his interlocutors with evidence that their government had mounted a new, clandestine uranium-based nuclear program. The North Koreans refused to disavow the program and insisted on their right to nuclear weapons. Kelly responded that the United States would not engage the DPRK unless and until it abandoned the program. The status of the 1994 U.S.-DPRK Agreed Framework, which had capped North Korea's plutonium-based program in return for international assistance in meeting its civilian energy needs, was uncertain at best. The Korean Peninsula Energy Development Organization (KEDO), the mechanism for providing that aid, stopped heavy fuel oil shipments to North Korea at the end of 2002 at American insistence.
- Topic:
- Economics, International Political Economy, and International Trade and Finance
- Political Geography:
- United States, Asia, Korea, and Sinai Peninsula
825. Brookings Northeast Asia Survey, 2002-03
- Author:
- Catharin Dalpino and Richard Bush
- Publication Date:
- 04-2003
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- The Brookings Institution
- Abstract:
- This is the third edition of the Northeast Asian Survey, sponsored by the Center for Northeast Asian Policy Studies of the Brookings Institution. Following this review of developments in the region during 2002, the bulk of the volume is composed of essays that provide mid-term perspectives on internal dynamics in China, Hong Kong, and Japan, on the crisis on the Korean peninsula, and on relations between China and Taiwan and on China and Southeast Asia. All the authors have been affiliated with the Brookings Institution during the 2002-03 year. Most were CNAPS Visiting Fellows or Brookings Federal Executive Fellows.
- Topic:
- Economics, International Political Economy, and International Trade and Finance
- Political Geography:
- China, Taiwan, Asia, Southeast Asia, Hong Kong, and Northeast Asia
826. Whither Europe?
- Author:
- Barry Eichengreen
- Publication Date:
- 05-2003
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Institute of European Studies (IES), UC Berkeley
- Abstract:
- Where I live, on the West Coast of the United States, and teach, at the University of California, Europe seems far away. Geographically we are closer to Latin America and Asia. Ethnically, Californians of Hispanic and Asian-American descent are increasingly numerous. Within 20 years, residents of European origin will be a minority; already they are a minority of the undergraduates enrolling at Berkeley. Economically as well, we look to Asia. It is in California where the largest number of container ships arriving from Asia are unloaded, and it is across the Pacific, and in China in particular, that most of those containers originate.
- Topic:
- Economics and Political Economy
- Political Geography:
- United States, China, Europe, Asia, California, and Latin America
827. Institutions for Fiscal Stability (Financial Integration in Europe and Asia)
- Author:
- Barry Eichengreen and Yung Chul Park
- Publication Date:
- 01-2003
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Institute of European Studies (IES), UC Berkeley
- Abstract:
- One of the most striking aspects of Europe's recent development has been the growth and integration of financial markets. Bond markets have grown explosively since the advent of the euro. Cross border transactions in government bonds have risen sharply with the emergence of the German bund as a benchmark asset, while the volume of corporate bond issues has grown even more dramatically. Securities markets are consolidating around London and Frankfurt, which are competing for the mantle of Europe's dominant financial center. This rapid market integration has raised questions about the viability of Europe's traditional model of bank-based financial intermediation, causing commercial and investment banks to respond with a wave of mergers and acquisitions.
- Topic:
- Economics and Political Economy
- Political Geography:
- Europe, Asia, London, and Germany
828. Good Intentions Will Not Pave The Road to Peace
- Publication Date:
- 09-2003
- Content Type:
- Policy Brief
- Institution:
- Center on International Cooperation (CIC)
- Abstract:
- The Afghan people have been promised a lot in the last two years. New rules for a new world would be written in their country. Regime change would deliver Afghans, finally, from oppression and violence, while a Marshall Plan would give them a chance to rebuild their lives.
- Topic:
- Development, Economics, and International Cooperation
- Political Geography:
- Afghanistan and Asia
829. Revaluing the renminbi: a case of 'déjà vu all over again'?
- Author:
- Mark P Thirlwell
- Publication Date:
- 11-2003
- Content Type:
- Policy Brief
- Institution:
- Lowy Institute for International Policy
- Abstract:
- There are strong parallels between today's US-China tensions over trade and US-Japan economic relations in the 1980s.
- Topic:
- Economics
- Political Geography:
- United States, Japan, China, Israel, East Asia, and Asia
830. The Difficulties of Discerning What's Too Tight: Taylor Rules and Japanese Monetary Policy
- Author:
- Adam S. Posen and Kenneth N. Kuttner
- Publication Date:
- 12-2003
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Peterson Institute for International Economics (PIIE)
- Abstract:
- Observers have relied increasingly on simple reaction functions, such as the Taylor rule, to assess the conduct of monetary policy. Applying this approach to deflationary or near-zero inflation environments is problematic, however, and this paper examines two shortcomings of particular relevance to the Japanese case of the last decade. One is the unusually high degree of uncertainty associated with potential output in an environment of prolonged stagnation and deflation. Consequently, reaction function-based assessments of Japanese monetary policy are so sensitive to the chosen gauge of potential output as to be unreliable. The second shortcoming is the neglect of policy expectations, which become critically important as nominal interest rates approach zero. Using long-term bond yields, we identify five episodes since 1996 characterized by abrupt declines in Japanese inflation expectations. Policies undertaken by the Bank of Japan during this period did little to stabilize expectations, and the August 2000 interest rate increase appears to have intensified deflationary concerns.
- Topic:
- Climate Change, Economics, and International Trade and Finance
- Political Geography:
- Japan, Israel, East Asia, and Asia