Developing Myanmar’s knowledge economy is key to the country’s economic development. Higher education institutions will play a central role in training Myanmar’s workforce. Yet, a number of the academic programs lag behind international or ASEAN standards as universities have been virtually cut off from the outside world for decades.
According to a June 2013 report by the McKinsey Global Institute titled “Myanmar’s moment: unique opportunities, major challenges,” Myanmar’s economic growth was “strikingly low” for most of the last century due to a gap in labor productivity. While global per capital GDP quadrupled from 1900 to 1990, Myanmar’s was virtually stagnant. Although Myanmar’s GDP grew from 1990 to 2010, it still lags behind its Asian neighbors. [Read more]
Developing Myanmar’s knowledge economy: Improving higher education through international cooperation
BRICS countries emerging as major aid donors
Are the BRICS countries (Brazil, Russia, India, People’s Republic of China, South Africa) new aid donors? No, they are long-standing providers of foreign assistance, with the People’s Republic of China (PRC) commencing its foreign assistance programs in 1950, Russia in 1955, Brazil in 1960, and South Africa in 1968. However, the BRICS’ foreign assistance programs have grown in recent years, some dramatically. Though the BRICS countries are grouped together, the PRC is by far the largest and most significant player. In January 2011, the Financial Times reported that in 2009–2010, PRC lending to the poorest states exceeded that lent by the World Bank. [Read more]
The PRC in the Greater Mekong Subregion: Economic and political implications
Driving out of the Wattay International Airport in Vientiane, Lao People’s Democratic Republic (PDR), one sees a large billboard featuring the overseas campus of Suzhou University in the People’s Republic of China’s (PRC). In a coffee shop in Vientiane, the first author met two PRC businessmen who talked about the prospect of a new venture to extract copper in northern Lao PDR. Just across the border from the PRC in Boten, Lao PDR, the second author talked with a local Lao driver in Chinese about the trucks full of fruit from Thailand parked minutes away from the PRC border checkpoint near the PRC-built casino ghost town that once ruled the area.1 And on the outskirts of Yunnan’s capital city of Kunming, the PRC’s fourth largest airport behind Beijing, Shanghai, and Guangzhou, Changshui International Airport, was opened in mid-2012. [Read more]
How to accelerate the implementation of the Millennium Development Goals
On 5 April 2013, the world’s largest and most successful anti-poverty campaign reached the 1,000-day mark toward achieving the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) by 2015. The MDGs were established in 2000, when leaders gathered at the United Nations to pledge to cut global poverty and hunger by half, fight disease, reduce child mortality rates, and expand education and economic opportunities for girls and women. This was not the first time world leaders had made lofty promises to reduce poverty, and cynics expected the MDGs to be abandoned as too ambitious. Instead, MDGs have helped set national and global priorities, mobilize action, and achieve remarkable results in poverty reduction. [Read more]
Banking crises and ‘Japanization’: Origins and implications
Recent research has found that economic recoveries from banking crises tend to be weaker and more prolonged than those from traditional types of deep recessions (see for example IMF 2009). Japan’s “two lost decades” perhaps represent an extreme example of this, and the experience has now passed into the lexicon as “Japanese-style stagnation” or “Japanization” for short. A long period of economic stagnation during peace time is not new, particularly among developing countries; the “lost decade” of Latin America in the 1980s is just one example. But Japanization was a surprising phenomenon observed in a mature market economy where the authorities were supposed to have sufficient policy tools to tackle banking crises and manage the economy. [Read more]
Economic integration and trade liberalization in South Asia
Thanks to its sustained economic growth over the last several decades, Asia has become the world’s most dynamic region. Maintaining this impressive growth rate, however, requires market integration to ensure the free flow of goods, services, and capital across borders (ADB 2013). Indeed, interplay of market forces and increased participation in trade have been decisive in the growth of emerging Asian economies. Until now, most of Asia’s final goods have been exported to Europe and the United States. Access to large markets allowed Asian countries to exploit their economies of scale on the one hand, and stimulate growth in their productive sectors on the other. With the rise of Asia, it is time for these countries to cooperate and become an integrated market of their own. [Read more]
Think Tank challenge: Surviving the competition
The growth of public policy research organizations, or think tanks, over the last few decades has been nothing less than explosive. Not only have these organizations increased in number, but the scope and impact of their work have also expanded dramatically. The potential of think tanks to support and sustain responsible governments and civil societies is far from exhaustive as policymakers worldwide face a common problem of bringing expert knowledge to bear in their decision making. [Read more]
Few firms in the PRC and India use capital markets to obtain financing and grow
One of the most notable developments in the world economy over the past 20 years has been the rise of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) and India as global economic powers, accompanied by high overall growth and an increase in their financial activity. But how much have the PRC and Indian firms used and benefitted from the expansion in capital markets to obtain financing and grow? In a new paper (Didier and Schmukler, 2013), we study this question by assembling a unique and comprehensive data set on domestic and international capital raising activity and performance of publicly listed Chinese and Indian firms. [Read more]
Why Indian business should embrace the RCEP
Mega regional trade deals are in vogue in a fragile world economy as a means to spur trade and growth. Asia’s mega regional trade deal—the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP), which includes India—is quietly being negotiated. But it deserves more press because the RCEP would create the world’s largest trading bloc and have major implications for Asian countries and the world economy. India is an important player in the RCEP negotiations but some Indian businesses are concerned about the prospect of further Indian trade with, particularly imports from, the People’s Republic of China (PRC). What would the RCEP cover and will Indian business benefit? What are the barriers to success and what should be done to overcome the hurdles? [Read more]
RCEP and TPP: Next stage in Asian regionalism
According to a report by the Asian Development Bank (2008), “Asia’s economies are increasingly vital to each other and to the world. Asia’s output today roughly equals that of Europe or North America, and may well be 50% larger than theirs by 2020, in terms of purchasing power parity.” Moreover, with both the US and Europe continuing to post low GDP growth of 1% to 2.5% annually, the center of the recovery has shifted to Asia. These factors became apparent during the November 2012 ASEAN summit, when Asia saw two different approaches to trade liberalization. One is the ASEAN-led Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) and the other is the US-led Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP). [Read more]
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