3 results
Preface
-
- By Saw Swee-Hock, Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, Danny Quah, London School of Economics and Political Science
-
- Book:
- The Politics of Knowledge
- Published by:
- ISEAS–Yusof Ishak Institute
- Published online:
- 21 October 2015
- Print publication:
- 02 March 2009, pp xv-xvi
-
- Chapter
- Export citation
-
Summary
The London School of Economics and Political Science has been organising the LSE Asia Forum in different parts of Asia, with the first one held in Bangkok in March 2004, the second in Hong Kong in September 2005, and the third in New Delhi in December 2006. The LSE Asia Forum 2008 was jointly organized with the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies in April 2008 in Singapore, with The Politics of Knowledge as the theme of the forum.
It was decided in the early planning stage that, unlike the previous three forums, the proceedings of the 2008 Forum should be published in a book under the joint imprint of LSE and ISEAS. The actual publication would be handled by ISEAS Publishing. Except for Chapter 2 which was specifically written after the Forum for inclusion in the book, the other six chapters are the revised version of the papers presented in the Forum. The book serves as a permanent record of the important event held in Singapore as well as a valuable contribution to the discourse on the politics of knowledge that is playing a pivotal role in shaping the economic and social advancement of many regions in our globalising world.
We would like to put on record our grateful thanks to the distinguished speakers who have taken their valuable time to speak at the Forum as well as revising their papers for publication. Our thanks go to Howard Davies, Director of LSE, and Ambassador K. Kesavapany, Director of ISEAS, for their encouragement and support in the organisation of the Forum and the publication of this book, and Mrs Triena Ong, Managing Editor, for overseeing the publication aspects. We must of course thank the many sponsors whose generous donations have contributed to the immediate success of the Forum and to the happy outcome as represented by this book. Finally, the views expressed in the book are those of the contributors and do not necessarily represent those of the institutions they represent.
Chapter 4 - Knowledge: The Driver of Economic Growth
-
- By Danny Quah, London School of Economics and Political Science
-
- Book:
- The Politics of Knowledge
- Published by:
- ISEAS–Yusof Ishak Institute
- Published online:
- 21 October 2015
- Print publication:
- 02 March 2009, pp 57-78
-
- Chapter
- Export citation
-
Summary
INTRODUCTION
A calamitous financial crisis recently caused economies and markets to collapse. Easy credit and a lack of financial system transparency had led to excessive borrowing at low interest rates. This last had fuelled a boom in housing, property, and asset markets across tightly-coupled economies. The economy at the centre of this maelstrom had its current account deficit balloon to a record 8 per cent of GDP. Investors realised all this was unsustainable and took corrective action. A catastrophic crisis ensued: asset values plunged by up to 70 per cent; real incomes plummeted in different countries by 11 per cent to as much as 35 per cent; millions of people lost their jobs.
What I have just related, however, is not the 2007 U.S. subprime mortgage-sparked credit crunch, although the latter still might emerge to be that. The 8 per cent-current account deficit country is not the U.S., but instead Thailand. The date on those events was 1997–98, not 2007–08. The ‘tightly-coupled economies’ were not the U.S. and Western Europe but instead the collection of Thailand, the East Asian Tiger economies, and the rest of emerging Asia. Those were the economies that, a decade ago, were viewed to be the catastrophes of corporate and political misgovernance, financial excess and wasteful over-investment. Yet, before 1997, those same countries had been held up as the growth miracles and poster children of a then-emerging consensus on managed economic development.
The year 1997 was a watershed. Ideas about successful economic development changed. Confidence in and on East Asia was shaken. Countries such as Singapore experienced for the first time in the modern era unemployment and stagnation. The names of Paul Krugman and my LSE colleague Alwyn Young grew identified with the idea that East Asia had come so far, so quickly through “mere sweat” — i.e., nothing miraculous in productivity but simply hard work and high savings — a growth strategy that ultimately must be unsustainable. A decade after those tumultuous events, once again emerging Asia has surprised.
11 - Convergence as distribution dynamics (with or without growth)
- Edited by Richard Baldwin, Graduate Institute of International Studies, Geneva, Daniel Cohen, Université de Paris I, Andre Sapir, Université Libre de Bruxelles, Anthony Venables, London School of Economics and Political Science
-
- Book:
- Market Integration, Regionalism and the Global Economy
- Published online:
- 24 February 2010
- Print publication:
- 26 August 1999, pp 298-328
-
- Chapter
- Export citation
-
Summary
Introduction
Convergence is a catchy idea, but one that organises serious thinking in areas as diverse as economic growth, theoretical econometrics, finance, European politics and monetary union, regional planning and geography, up through but not ending at entertainment and multi-media technology and the software industry.
Some growth economists define ‘convergence’ as a single economy approaching its theoretically-derived steady-state growth path. Others translate this to whether poor economies are catching up with rich ones. Yet others think of these two – conceptually quite different – statements as being identical, and thus of either indicating convergence.
At one extreme, econometricians and probabilists have found it useful to work with different notions of convergence of sequences of random variables. At a different extreme, economists and policy-makers in Europe have been obsessed with the Maastricht convergence criteria. Finally, when high-tech, fast-growth market participants – people who actually create value in modern economies – get together, they too excitedly discuss convergence, but now between biological and machined products, or between communications, computers and content (e.g. Kelly, 1994; Tapscott, 1996). In every instance, the term ‘convergence’ is used with a different meaning – and rightly so.
That ‘convergence’ suffers from this meaning overload should not disguise its importance. This chapter concerns ‘convergence’ in the sense of poor economies catching up with the rich. If by economies, one means countries, then magnitudes of the numbers alone should already show why convergence is important. Some countries have been doubling per capita incomes every decade; yet others have been stagnant, with levels of per capita income a hundred times lower than those of the leading economies.