This article aims to examine the trade effects of the South Asian FTAs including regional and bilateral ones with a focus on Sri Lanka, by applying a gravity trade model as an analytical framework. The study specifically targets the following three FTAs: the South Asian Free Trade Agreement (SAFTA) enforced in 2006, the India-Sri Lanka Free Trade Agreement (ISFTA) in 2001, and the Pakistan-Sri ...

A Theoretical Model of the Chinese Labor Market This paper constructs a theoretical labor market model for China, and utilizes the model to examine the effects of various labor market policies on economic well-being. Two key features of the model are a segmented labor market involving three sectors – state-owned enterprises, private enterprises, and agriculture – and China’s unique household re...

Using a unique cross-national survey of publicly traded firms in Indonesia, Korea and Thailand, we provide the first systematic cross-national evidence on the incidence, diffusion, nature, and scope of Joint Labor-Management Committees (JLMCs) and shed light on the potential role of employee stakeholders in corporate governance in Asia. We find insofar as publicly traded firms in these three co...

We explain why China is a “chaotic” or “strange” attractor of FDI. It is an “attractor” because its FDI inflows increased steadily even though the world FDI inflows have decreased considerably in recent years. It is indeed “strange,” since its rates of FDI return are below the world average and predictions of its economic collapse are abundant. We find that Hong Kong and Taiwan are predominant ...

The purpose of this study is to empirically test the validity of Kaldor’s laws of economic growth in China between 1978 and 2004 and to provide an alternative explanation of sources of Chinese economic growth in a Kaldorian perspective. First, in a spatial econometrics perspective using a regional data set, the present paper empirically verifies that Kaldorian hypotheses on economic growth hold...

Executive Compensation, Firm Performance, and Chaebols in Korea: Evidence from New Panel Data This paper provides the first rigorous econometric estimates on the pay-performance relations for executives of Korean firms with and without Chaebol affiliation. To do so, we have assembled for the first time panel data (that provide information not only on executive compensation and firm performance ...

The Kyrgyz Republic was one of the poorest of the Soviet republics and suffered severe shocks with the dissolution of the USSR in 1991. It has also been one of the most rapid reformers among Soviet successor states, and has some of the best household survey data. This paper applies probit analysis to 1993 and 1996 household survey data to examine the correlates of poverty during transition to a...

This paper attempts to address a puzzle in China’s investment pattern: despite high aggregate investment and remarkable economic growth, negative net investment is commonly found at the microeconomic level. Using a large firm-level dataset, we test three hypotheses to explain the existence and extent of negative investment in each ownership group: what we term the efficiency (or restructuring) ...

Applied economists are often interested in studying trends in important economic indicators, such as inequality or poverty, but comparisons over time can be made impossible by changes in data collection methodology. We describe an easily implemented procedure, based on inverse probability weighting, that allows to recover comparability of estimated parameters identified implicitly by a moment c...

Inequality of Educational Opportunity in India: Changes over Time and across States This paper documents the extent of inequality of educational opportunity in India spanning the period 1983-2004 using National Sample Survey (NSS) data. We build on recent developments in the literature that has operationalized concepts in the inequality of opportunity theory (including Roemer’s) and construct t...