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101. Offshoring, Outsourcing, and Production Relocation-Labor—Market Effects in the OECD Countries and Developing Asia

Author:
Jacob Funk Kirkegaard
Publication Date:
04-2007
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Peterson Institute for International Economics
Abstract:
This working paper evaluates the validity of available data on and the extent of the impact of offshoring on service-sector labor markets in the United States, EU-15, and Japan. A three-tier data validity hierarchy is identified. The impact of offshoring on employment in the three regions is found to be limited. Correspondingly, developing Asia is unlikely to experience large employment gains as a destination region. The paper highlights the case of the Indian IT industry, where the majority of job creation has been in local Indian companies rather than foreign multinationals. Domestic entrepreneurs have played a crucial role in the growth of the Indian IT-related service industry. However, increased tradability of services and associated skill bias in favor of higher skilled workers could have an uneven employment impact on developing Asia. Some high-skilled groups are benefiting and will continue to benefit dramatically from new employment opportunities and rising wage levels. Meanwhile, the same skill bias may eliminate many employment opportunities for unskilled or low-skilled groups in the region. Developing Asian countries therefore face a double educational challenge in the coming years: the need to simultaneously improve both primary and higher education.
Topic:
International Relations, Development, Economics, and Industrial Policy
Political Geography:
United States, Japan, and Asia

102. Global Rebalancing

Author:
John H. Makin
Publication Date:
10-2007
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research
Abstract:
The global economic and financial picture is changing rapidly. A review of some of the key elements is in order, as the U.S. economy has slowed rapidly and the Federal Reserve has responded aggressively with rate cuts, while the Bank of England's tough policies pushed one of the United Kingdom's largest mortgage lenders, Northern Rock, to the brink of collapse as a bank run on that suddenly beleaguered institution ensued. Meanwhile, Japan, still the world's second-largest economy—though perhaps the least dynamic of the major ones—slipped into negative growth at a 1.2 percent annual rate in the second quarter after having initially reported growth over 2 percent. The rate-boost-obsessed Bank of Japan finally decided to stop raising rates, and, to add to the complexity of the picture, Japan's relatively new prime minister Shinzo Abe resigned, unable to provide the leadership sorely needed in a nation lacking economic and political direction.
Topic:
Economics, International Trade and Finance, and Markets
Political Geography:
United States, Japan, United Kingdom, and England

103. APEC and the search for relevance: 2007 and beyond

Author:
John Ravenhill, Lorraine Elliott, Helen E.S. Nesadurai, and Nick Bisley
Publication Date:
11-2006
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Australian National University Department of International Relations
Abstract:
In September 2007, Australia will host the annual Economic Leaders' Meeting of the Asia–Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum. This will be the culmination of over 100 days of ministerial, official and business group meetings, working groups and dialogues that will be held in various Australian cities from January to August. Fifteen federal government departments will be involved along with a range of other interested actors, predominantly in the private sector. The Australian government will spend considerable sums of money on the leaders' meeting itself, not least to ensure the security of those attending. This will include, if all goes according to plan, the heads of government of 21 countries—member economies in APEC-speak—including the United States, Russia, Japan and China. Security may well be the least of the government's worries. Few would argue that APEC is 'going strong' as a regional economic forum and recent reviews have suggested that at best it faces an uncertain future and that at worst it could be in a state of terminal decline. The forum is argued to have lost its relevance and to have generally been unsuccessful in attaining any of its more ambitious goals such as regional trade liberalisation.
Topic:
Security, Development, Economics, and International Trade and Finance
Political Geography:
Russia, United States, Japan, China, Australia, and Australia/Pacific

104. An Index of Donor Performance

Author:
David Roodman
Publication Date:
11-2006
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center for Global Development
Abstract:
The Commitment to Development Index of the Center for Global Development rates 21 rich countries on the “development-friendliness” of their policies. It is revised and updated annually. The component on foreign assistance combines quantitative and qualitative measures of official aid, and of fiscal policies that support private charitable giving. The quantitative measure uses a net transfers concept, as distinct from the net flows concept in the net Official Development Assistance measure of the Development Assistance Committee. The qualitative factors are: a penalty for tying aid; a discounting system that favors aid to poorer, better-governed recipients; and a penalty for “project proliferation.” The charitable giving measure is based on an estimate of the share of observed private giving to developing countries that is attributable to a) lower overall taxes or b) specific tax incentives for giving. De-spite the adjustments, overall results are dominated by differences in quantity of official aid given. This is because while there is a seven-fold range in net concessional transfers/GDP among the scored countries, variation in overall aid quality across donors appears far lower, and private giving is generally small. Denmark, the Netherlands, Norway, and Sweden score highest while the largest donors in absolute terms, the United States and Japan, rank at or near the bottom. Standings by the 2006 methodology have been relatively stable since 1995.
Topic:
International Relations, Development, Economics, and Humanitarian Aid
Political Geography:
United States, Japan, Norway, and Netherlands

105. What Is Tight Money?

Author:
John H. Makin
Publication Date:
03-2006
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research
Abstract:
Concerns over deflation have dominated monetary policy during the past several years in Japan, and also in the United States as recently as 2003. As a result, the Bank of Japan and the Federal Reserve have been highly accommodative. In Japan, this took the form of a zero interest rate. In the U.S. context, it was manifest in rates at well below normal yardsticks, such as nominal GDP growth that would call for U.S. policy interest rates close to 6 percent rather than at current levels below 5 percent. Unusually accommodative monetary policies and the substantial liquidity flows they have entailed have boosted asset values and compressed risk spreads. Consequently, demand growth has persisted at high levels for long enough to cause modestly higher inflation. The time has come for tighter monetary policy, and central banks in the United States, Europe, and Japan have all begun to apply it.
Topic:
Economics and International Trade and Finance
Political Geography:
United States, Japan, Europe, Israel, and East Asia

106. Japan Gingerly Exits Deflation

Author:
John H. Makin
Publication Date:
02-2006
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research
Abstract:
In August 2000, with the Japanese growth rate holding above 2 percent, the Bank of Japan decided to initiate an end to the zero interest rate policy that it had initiated in March 1999. This step was taken despite the existence of modest deflation, indicated by readings of minus 0.2 to minus 0.5 percent on various measures of inflation. At that time, no central bank had thought seriously about deflation as a threat since the depression of the 1930s.
Topic:
Development, Economics, and International Trade and Finance
Political Geography:
Japan, Israel, and East Asia

107. The Current State of the Japanese Economy

Author:
Edward J. Lincoln
Publication Date:
04-2005
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:
No abstract is available.
Topic:
Development, Economics, and Government
Political Geography:
Japan, Israel, and East Asia

108. OECD Territorial Review of Japan

Publication Date:
09-2005
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development
Abstract:
In recent years Japan has been challenged by important socioeconomic changes. Low economic growth, population ageing and depopulation, and new trade relationships with the East Asia region have made it increasingly necessary to transform the system established during the period of economic and demographic expansion.
Topic:
Development, Economics, and Emerging Markets
Political Geography:
Japan, Israel, and East Asia

109. Economic Survey of Japan, 2005

Publication Date:
01-2005
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development
Abstract:
The strengthening of the economy has raised hopes that Japan is emerging from a decade of stagnation. Output has been increasing at a more than 2 per cent annual rate since 2002, reflecting strong external demand and the progress made in corporate restructuring and economic reform. However, Japan still faces a number of serious headwinds to sustained growth, notably entrenched deflation and continued declines in bank lending and land prices. Meanwhile, the government's financial position continues to deteriorate, raising concerns about fiscal sustainability at the same time that population ageing is increasing demands for public spending. Addressing these challenges requires a combination of well-designed macroeconomic policies and structural measures to boost the growth potential and ensure rising living standards in the face of rapid population ageing.
Topic:
Economics, Government, and International Trade and Finance
Political Geography:
Japan and Israel

110. An Assessment of the Impact of Japanese Foreign Exchange Intervention: 1991-2004

Author:
Alain P. Chaboud and Owen Humpage
Publication Date:
01-2005
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System
Abstract:
We analyze the short-term price impact of Japanese foreign exchange intervention operations between 1991 and 2004, using official data from Japan's Ministry of Finance. Over the period as a whole, we find some evidence of a modest "against the wind" effect, but interventions do not have value as a forecast that the exchange rate will move in a direction consistent with the operations. Interventions conducted between 1995 and 2002, which were large and infrequent, met with a much higher degree of success. For the most recent episode of intervention, in 2003 and 2004, despite the record size and frequency of the overall episode, it is difficult to statistically distinguish the pattern of exchange rate movements on intervention days from that of all the days in that particular subperiod, showing little effectiveness. Still, while the evidence of Japanese intervention effectiveness is modest overall, it appears to be stronger than that found using similar techniques for U.S. intervention operations conducted in the 1980s and 1990s.
Topic:
Development, Economics, and International Trade and Finance
Political Geography:
Japan and Israel