Decomposing Total Factor Productivity Growth in Manufacturing and Services ∗ NEIL FOSTER-MCGREGOR AND BART VERSPAGEN Using the World Input–Output Database, this paper calculates total factor productivity (TFP) growth for a sample of 40 economies during the period 1995–2009 to show that TFP growth in Asian economies has been relatively strong. In a number of Asian economies, TFP growth in services has outpaced that in manufacturing.

Do Factory Managers Know What Workers Want? Manager–Worker Information Asymmetries and Pareto Optimal Human Resource Management Policies PARIS ADLER, DRUSILLA BROWN, RAJEEV DEHEJIA, ∗ GEORGE DOMAT, AND RAYMOND ROBERTSON This paper evaluates the conjecture that factory managers may not be offering a cost-minimizing configuration of compensation and workplace amenities by using manager and worker survey data from Better Work Vietnam. Working conditions are found to

The Impact of the Minimum Wage on Male and Female Employment and Earnings in India ∗ NIDHIYA MENON AND YANA VAN DER MEULEN RODGERS This study examines how employment and wages for men and women respond to changes in the minimum wage in India, a country known for its extensive system of minimum wage regulations across states and industries. Using repeated cross sections of India’s

Growth Convergence and the Middle-Income Trap ∗ TAKATOSHI ITO Emerging market economies in East Asia have followed a similar growth path (growth convergence) from a low-income, high-growth state to a middle-income, middle-growth state through industrialization. The economic development of Japan was followed by the “four tigers” (Hong Kong, Porcelana; the Republic of Korea; Singapur; and Taipei,Porcelana) in the 1970s; and subsequently by members of the

Sectoral Infrastructure Investments in an Unbalanced Growing Economy: The Case of Potential Growth in India CHETAN GHATE, GERHARD GLOMM, AND JIALU LIU STREETER ∗ We construct a two-sector (agriculture and modern) overlapping generations growth model calibrated to India to study the effects of sectoral tax rates, sectoral infrastructure investments, and labor market frictions on potential growth in India. Our model is motivated by the idea

Misallocation, Access to Finance, and Public Credit: Firm-Level Evidence ∗ MIGUEL A. LE ´ON-LEDESMA AND DIMITRIS CHRISTOPOULOS Using a database of 23,000 firms in 45 economías, we test the quantitative importance of access to finance and access to public and private credit for the determination of misallocation. We first derive measures of factor market and size distortions, and then use these measures within a regression

Misallocation and Productivity: The Case of Vietnamese Manufacturing ∗ DOAN THI THANH HA, KOZO KIYOTA, AND KENTA YAMANOUCHI This paper attempts to measure the effect of resource misallocation on aggregate manufacturing total factor productivity, focusing on Vietnamese manufacturing firms during the period 2000–2009. One of the major findings of this paper is that there would have been substantial improvement in aggregate total factor productivity in

The Role of Structural Change in the Economic Development of Asian Economies ∗ NEIL FOSTER–MCGREGOR AND BART VERSPAGEN In this paper, we combine data on gross domestic product (PIB) per capita and sectoral employment shares to undertake a decomposition of GDP per capita growth for a sample of 43 Asian and non-Asian economies. We decompose income changes into three components: (i) changes in labor productivity

Potential Growth in Asia and Its Determinants: An Empirical Investigation MATTEO LANZAFAME ∗ This paper contributes to the literature on growth in Asia in several respects. I provide estimates of potential growth for 21 Asian economies using an aggregate supply model with time-varying parameters and a Kalman filtering methodology. My estimates indicate that the actual growth slowdown experienced by many of these economies in the

Typhoon Aid and Development: The Effects of Typhoon-Resistant Schools and Instructional Resources on Educational Attainment in the Philippines AVA GAIL CAS ∗ This paper examines the effects on educational attainment of assistance programs that provided typhoon-resistant secondary schools and instructional resources in the Philippines. Using the variation in the availability of assistance programs and differences in exposure across age cohorts induced by the timing of

Examining Monetary Policy Transmission in the People’s Republic of China–Structural Change Models with a Monetary Policy Index+ ∗ PAUL G. EGAN AND ANTHONY J. LEDDIN This paper estimates augmented versions of the Investment–Saving curve for the People’s Republic of China in an attempt to examine the relationship between monetary policy and the real economy. It endeavors to account for any structural break, nonlinearity, or asymmetry

Foreign Direct Investment, Terms of Trade, and Quality Upgrading: What Is So Special about South Asia? KONSTANTIN M. WACKER, PHILIPP GROSSKURTH, ∗ AND TABEA LAKEMANN The existing literature has highlighted the positive effect of foreign direct investment (FDI) on export upgrading and associated terms of trade in developing economies. Sin embargo, the FDI effect has been found to be negative in South Asia. en este documento,

Information and Communication Technology-Enabled Modern Services Export Performances of Asian Economies ∗ SHAHBAZ NASIR AND KALIAPPA KALIRAJAN Advancements in information and communication technology (ICT) have expanded the possibilities for trade in modern services. Many emerging and developed Asian economies are increasingly participating in these new trade activities. This study examines the export performances of emerging and developed Asian economies in selected modern services—computer and information,

Enjoying the Fruits of Their Labor: Redirecting Exports to Asian Consumers WILLEM THORBECKE ∗ There has been an explosion in the amount of parts and components traded within East Asian production networks. The People’s Republic of China (PRC) has emerged as the final assembly point for the goods produced. These goods then flow primarily outside of the region. When the global financial crisis (GFC) ocurrió,

Analysis of Credit Ratings for Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises: Evidence from Asia ∗ NAOYUKI YOSHINO AND FARHAD TAGHIZADEH-HESARY In Asia, small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) account for the major share of employment and dominate domestic economies, yet providing these compa- nies with access to finance is a challenge across the region. Asian economies are often characterized as having bank-dominated financial systems and underde- veloped capital

Entrepreneurial Impulse, Investment Behavior, and Economic Fluctuations–A VAR Analysis with Indian Data ∗ PANCHANAN DAS This study analyzes the observed behavior of growth cycles and the dynamics of economic fluctuations in terms of entrepreneurial impulse with Indian macroe- conomic time series data for more than 60 años. The fluctuations of investment are explained in terms of persistence, volatility, and comovements of the cyclical components. El

Trilemma Challenges for the People’s Republic of China ∗ MASAHIRO KAWAI AND LI-GANG LIU This paper first reviews recent developments in exchange rate regimes, capital account liberalization, interest rate liberalization, and monetary policymaking in the People’s Republic of China (PRC). It then observes that the PRC’s monetary policy autonomy may have been reduced with falling capital control effectiveness and a rigid exchange regime that is

Sustaining Growth of the People’s Republic of China ∗ JUSTIN YIFU LIN AND FAN ZHANG This paper reviews economic growth theory in the framework of economic devel- opment and explores the possibility of sustained growth in the People’s Republic of China (PRC) in the long run. We argue that the PRC has the potential to sus- tain relatively high growth rates. Primero, since the technological