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611. The Impact of Global Value Chain Integration on Wages: Evidence from Matched Worker-Industry Data in Thailand

Author:
Sasiwimon W. Paweenawat
Publication Date:
08-2019
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Economic Research Institute for ASEAN and East Asia (ERIA)
Abstract:
Using a two-stage estimation of matched worker-industry data from 2000 to 2011, this study investigates the impact of global value chain (GVC) integration on wages and the skill premium in 32 industries in Thailand, a country with recent heavy involvement in GVCs. This study employs foreign value added in both final and intermediate goods exports as a proxy for the degree of industry integration in GVCs and applies a panel fixed effects estimation on constructed panel data to investigate its relationship with wages. The main finding indicates that a higher level of industry integration with GVCs leads to higher wages and a higher skill premium, confirming the positive effect of GVC involvement on wages and the complementary effect of high demand for skilled workers in GVC-oriented industries in Thailand. Workers in industries with positions close to the end of the value chain (downstream position) will earn a higher wage than those working in the upstream position. These results have significant policy implications. The Thai government should not only attempt to increase industry involvement in GVCs overall, but also aim to lift industries to higher positions in the GVC to gain the most benefits for Thai workers and the country overall.
Topic:
Labor Issues, Inequality, Wage Subsidies, and Global Value Chains
Political Geography:
Asia and Thailand

612. A Spark Beyond Time and Place: Ogawa Shinsuke and Asia

Author:
Tamako Akiyama
Publication Date:
08-2019
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Economic Research Institute for ASEAN and East Asia (ERIA)
Abstract:
One of the most important documentary film-makers of the post-war period, Ogawa Shinsuke, had an enormous impact on film-makers across Asia. This paper will unpack some of the paradox-filled processes by which his influence spread across the Asian film-making world through an analysis of interviews, film festival records, and the role of translation during his lifetime (1936–1992). Energised by an increasing interest in mentoring young Asian film-makers in his later years, and having created a platform for the exchange of films and ideas through the first documentary film festival in Asia in the late 1980s, Ogawa continued to offer a kind of spiritual orientation to other film-makers in translation even after his death. This paper will examine how this process was not merely a result of Ogawa’s own efforts but realised through a series of interwoven yet contradictory social, economic, and interpersonal histories. Amidst the call for a greater exchange of media within and beyond Japan, the circulation across Asia of Ogawa’s cultural capital offers an opportunity to think about the significance of the various ‘investments’ that form such capital, and poses important issues for considering the conditions under which it can continue to survive.
Topic:
Globalization, Culture, and Media
Political Geography:
Japan and Asia

613. Words and Their Silos: Commercial, Governmental, and Academic Support for Japanese Literature and Writing Overseas

Author:
Anne McKnight
Publication Date:
08-2019
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Economic Research Institute for ASEAN and East Asia (ERIA)
Abstract:
This paper connects in a preliminary way realms of analysis and data regarding practices of disseminating Japanese literature and writing translated in English and Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN)–located languages since about 2000. The assumption is that translations from different languages have been consistently silo’ed – separated and allowed to accumulate and dynamically evolve. I outline a history of the de-linking of ‘writing’ from ‘literature’ as well as language study itself, which has led to both a withdrawal and an explosion of funding since about 1990. I note secondary effects of re-concentration in English and European languages, a flourishing of small-press activity and writing on food (Jonathan Gold) and self-help (Kondo Marie), and a focus on the ‘authorised translator’ model in both English and ASEAN languages following a tendency to standardise copyright law. Second, I introduce some histories and distinctive practices that could model support for translators. Last, I discuss economies of both money and prestige in different practices, and offer some suggestions based on interviews with an eye to supporting translators so that all languages have a hand in creative practice, and English-language–based translators can collaborate with translators in other languages.
Topic:
Economics, Culture, Literature, and Language
Political Geography:
Japan and Asia

614. Value Added Exports and the Local Labour Market: Evidence from Vietnamese Manufacturing Firms

Author:
Duc Anh Dang
Publication Date:
08-2019
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Economic Research Institute for ASEAN and East Asia (ERIA)
Abstract:
The formation of global value chains (GVCs) has reshaped production processes across countries. This paper investigates the relationship between GVCs and firms’ employment by using panel data on Vietnamese small manufacturing firms for 2005–2011. The results suggest that increased foreign value added in exports results in higher wages, increased productivity, and a greater share of production workers in domestic small and medium-sized enterprises. In addition, it brings about a lower share of professionals and makes smaller firms retrain their existing workers. At the same time, domestic value added in the export of intermediate products has negative impacts on employment and increases wages, particularly in medium-sized firms. All of these may come from the increased competition for labour from larger firms.
Topic:
International Cooperation, Labor Issues, Trade, and Global Value Chains
Political Geography:
Asia and Vietnam

615. In the Closet: Japanese Creative Industries and their Reluctance to Forge Global and Transnational Linkages in ASEAN and East Asia

Author:
Shinji Oyama
Publication Date:
08-2019
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Economic Research Institute for ASEAN and East Asia (ERIA)
Abstract:
This paper addresses rarely asked questions: is Cool Japan a creative industries policy and, if so, what kind of creative industries policy is it? It addresses these questions by examining Cool Japan’s differences from the UK derived and globally very influential creative industries model. The paper will try to make sense of these differences by looking at how the Japanese creative industries comprise businesses of different sizes with a varied history and prestige, how those companies have complex and contrasting relationships with various state organisations, and how the forces of globalisation and its free-market and neo-liberal economic ideologies affect companies in various sectors differently. This will challenge the dominant narrative of Japanese Creative Industries and Cool Japan in which, it is generally believed, the former embraces globalisation and digitalisation, and the latter is responsible for broadening the appeal of Japanese popular culture abroad. This paper reveals the complexity and diversity of the creative industries from socio-cultural and politico-economic perspectives often overlooked in the Cool Japan discourse.
Topic:
Globalization, International Cooperation, transnationalism, and Industry
Political Geography:
Asia

616. Exporting ‘Content’ in the Face of Indifference

Author:
Markus Nornes
Publication Date:
09-2019
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Economic Research Institute for ASEAN and East Asia (ERIA)
Abstract:
Attempts by Japanese producers to ‘crack’ the North American entertainment market date back to the 1910s, and were driven by both profit motive and ideological desires to have one’s own cinema recognised by the hegemonic other. This paper considers the historical difficulties of exporting Japanese films to the most desirable markets in the West. In this context, it examines recent Chinese attempts to enter American cinema production and distribution, and contemplates the implications of the failure of these efforts for the regional export of Japanese films.
Topic:
Culture, Media, and Film
Political Geography:
United States, Japan, Asia, and North America

617. Japan: A Nuclear State?

Author:
Henrique Altemani de Oliveira
Publication Date:
12-2019
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Revista Brasileira de Política Internacional (RBPI)
Institution:
Brazilian Center for International Relations (CEBRI)
Abstract:
Japan is often seen as pacifist and as a defender of nuclear disarmament. This article, though, sustains that Japan is basing its security on extended nuclear deterrence, and on the possibility of acquiring nuclear weapons. In the first part of the article, the role of extended deterrence in the relationship with the U.S. is analyzed, and in the second, the history of the Japanese nuclear option since the end of the Second World War is reassessed.
Topic:
Nuclear Weapons, Weapons, and Deterrence
Political Geography:
Japan and Asia

618. Chinese Cultural Diplomacy: instruments in China’s strategy for international insertion in the 21st Century

Author:
Danielly Silva Ramos Becard and Paulo Menechelli Filho
Publication Date:
12-2019
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Revista Brasileira de Política Internacional (RBPI)
Institution:
Brazilian Center for International Relations (CEBRI)
Abstract:
This article analyzes instruments of Chinese cultural diplomacy (2003-2018), such as the media, cinema, and the Confucius Institutes, as well as its potential to overcome barriers between states. China’s cultural soft power was studied in Confucius Institutes in the U.S.. The conclusion is that China increasingly used cultural diplomacy and turned it into a key instrument in its strategy for international insertion.
Topic:
Foreign Policy, Soft Power, and Cultural Diplomacy
Political Geography:
China and Asia

619. Global Value Chains and Formal Employment in Viet Nam

Author:
Trinh Q. Long, Le T. Trang, and Matthias Helble
Publication Date:
09-2019
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Economic Research Institute for ASEAN and East Asia (ERIA)
Abstract:
This study investigates the impacts of integration into global value chains (GVCs) on formal and informal employment in Viet Nam. Utilising the Viet Nam Household Living Standard Surveys and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development’s Trade in Value Added database (in 2010, 2012, and 2014), we examine how GVCs’ engagement affects the share of formal employment (through a fixed effects estimator) and the likelihood of being a formal employee (through a probit estimator). Our estimation results show a positive relationship between the level of GVC engagement and the share of formal employment at the provincial level. While the GVC participation index (measured as the sum of backward and forward participation indices) does not have a statistically significant effect on the share of formal employment at the provincial level, each component of GVC participation (i.e. backward and forward participation) has effects at the provincial level in different directions. At the individual level, we find that provincial GVC engagement is also positively correlated with individuals’ likelihood of being formally employed. However, the probability of being a formal employee (individual) is not directly affected by GVC engagement at the provincial level, but is indirectly affected through the local labour market. Such results indicate that individual and household characteristics are robust determinants of being employed as a formal employee.
Topic:
Labor Issues, Employment, and Global Value Chains
Political Geography:
Asia and Vietnam

620. The Impact of Economic Globalisation on Firm Performance and the Labour Market: Evidence from Japan

Author:
Keiko Ito
Publication Date:
10-2019
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Economic Research Institute for ASEAN and East Asia (ERIA)
Abstract:
This paper summarises the major findings and arguments in the literature on the impact of globalisation on firm performance and the labour market, focusing on the case of Japan. Internationalised firms show better performance. Although offshoring has shifted labour demand towards skilled workers, thedirect contribution of globalisation to the widening wage gap is quite limited. The empirical evidence for Japan is more or less consistent with that for other developed countries, but some observations on Japan are worth pointing out. First, several empirical studies confirm a learning-by-exporting effect. Second, there is no strong evidence that increases in imports from China have reduced domestic employment. Increases in imports from China have a positive effect on value added growth in downstream industries, implying that imports from China are likely to be complementary to domestic production in Japan.
Topic:
Globalization, Industrial Policy, Labor Issues, Exports, and Imports
Political Geography:
Japan, China, and Asia