'This book provides a coherent and current account of how India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, the Philippines and the People's Republic of China coped with the Asian financial crisis of the 1990s and the recent global economic recession, and how they may address future challenges in maintaining growth in difficult times. It features a valuable overview of issues from a regional perspective, five chapters on general elements and obstacles in development, and individual chapters on the experience of each of the six countries. Every chapter is replete with relevant institutional and statistical data. The volume fills a void in the literature and is highly recommended for graduate students and for economists concerned with contemporary Asia.' – Peter Drake, The University of New England and Australian Catholic University, Australia 'To understand what makes Asia tick in the face of continuing global uncertainty and instability one has to go beyond numbers into the region's psyche and idiosyncrasies. This volume provides an interestingly intrusive and refreshingly insightful analysis of a highly complex phenomenon that defies generalizations as shown by the diversity of individual country experiences.' – Mohamed Ariff, International Centre for Education in Islamic Finance (INCEIF), Malaysia The center of global economic activity is shifting rapidly towards Asia, driven by a combination of the economic dynamism of the People's Republic of China, India, and other middle-income Asian countries, and sluggish growth in the OECD economies. The rapid growth and rising global prominence have raised a range of major challenges for Asia and for the rest of the world. This comprehensive, forward-looking book examines these issues through in-depth studies of major Asian economies and an analysis of the key development policy options. The contributors, leading international authorities in their field, explore cross-cutting thematic issues with special reference to developing Asia. They address a broad range of subjects including: investment and productivity, savings and the savings–investment relationship, financial development, the provision of infrastructure, and governance and institutions. Detailed country studies focusing on the People's Republic of China, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, and Thailand not only provide an analytical narrative for each case study, but also draw attention to the similarities and diversity within the region. This challenging and thought-provoking book will prove an important point of reference for scholars, researchers, and students in the fields of economics, development economics, and Asian studies.

This book consists of 20 short essays on different dimensions of international economic policy with specific (though not exclusive) focus on Asia. Topics covered include: exchange rate regimes and reserve buildup in Asia; global macroeconomic imbalances; financial sector liberalization; international capital flows to and from Asia; infrastructure financing in Asia; foreign direct investment (FDI) flows, production networks, manufacturing and outsourcing in Asia; the economic rise of China and India; and trade, financial and monetary regionalism in Asia. While the book covers important and often technical economic issues of contemporary policy relevance, it is written in a manner that is easily accessible to non-economists, including students of public policy, international affairs, international commerce and business, as well as policy-makers and interested observers.

After World War II, Japan reinvented itself as a shipbuilding powerhouse and began its rapid ascent in the global economy. Its expansion strategy integrated raw material procurement, the redesign of global transportation infrastructure, and domestic industrialization. In this authoritative and engaging study, Stephen G. Bunker and Paul S. Ciccantell identify the key factors in Japan’s economic growth and the effects this growth had on the reorganization of significant sectors of the global economy. Bunker and Ciccantell discuss what drove Japan’s economic expansion, how Japan globalized the work economy to support it, and why this spectacular growth came to a dramatic halt in the 1990s. Drawing on studies of ore mining, steel making, corporate sector reorganization, and port/rail development, they provide valuable insight into technical processes as well as specific patterns of corporate investment. East Asia and the Global Economy introduces a theory of “new historical materialism” that explains the success of Japan and other world industrial powers. Here, the authors assert that the pattern of Japan’s ascent is essential for understanding China’s recent path of economic growth and dominance and anticipating what the future may hold.

Takeshi Hamashita, arguably Asia's premier historian of the longue durée, has been instrumental in opening a new field of inquiry in Chinese, East Asian and world historical research. Engaging modernization, Marxist and world system approaches, his wide-ranging redefinition of the evolving relationships between the East Asia regional system and the world economy from the sixteenth century to the present has sent ripples throughout Asian and international scholarship. His research has led him to reconceptualize the position of China first in the context of an East Asian regional order and subsequently within the framework of a wider Euro-American-Asian trade and financial order that was long gestating within, and indeed contributing to the shape of, the world market. This book presents a selection of essays from Takeshi Hamashita's oeuvre on Asian trade to introduce this important historian's work to the English speaking reader. It examines the many critical issues surrounding China and East Asia's incorporation to the world economy, including: Maritime perspectives on China, Asia and the world economy Intra-Asian trade Chinese state finance and the tributary trade system Banking and finance Maritime customs.

Policymakers, academics, think tanks and practitioners will benefit from the international perspective of the book, particularly those interested in the influential Asian architecture. This book is also a useful reference tool for students of macroecon

Andre Gunder Frank asks us to ReOrient our views away from Eurocentrism—to see the rise of the West as a mere blip in what was, and is again becoming, an Asia-centered world. In a bold challenge to received historiography and social theory he turns on its head the world according to Marx, Weber, and other theorists, including Polanyi, Rostow, Braudel, and Wallerstein. Frank explains the Rise of the West in world economic and demographic terms that relate it in a single historical sweep to the decline of the East around 1800. European states, he says, used the silver extracted from the American colonies to buy entry into an expanding Asian market that already flourished in the global economy. Resorting to import substitution and export promotion in the world market, they became Newly Industrializing Economies and tipped the global economic balance to the West. That is precisely what East Asia is doing today, Frank points out, to recover its traditional dominance. As a result, the "center" of the world economy is once again moving to the "Middle Kingdom" of China. Anyone interested in Asia, in world systems and world economic and social history, in international relations, and in comparative area studies, will have to take into account Frank's exciting reassessment of our global economic past and future.

This collection of essays examines the case for and against globalization, the effects of U.S. economic and foreign policy, and numerous issues related to Asian economics and politics. Published in prominent journals and news media between 1996 and 2001, these cross-cutting essays are as relevant today as when they were first written. The author provides remarkable insight into the economic and military directions in which particular countries or regions are moving, and what these movements portend for the future.