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Ways to jumpstart global productivity Oct 24, 2017

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It’s been nearly a decade since the 2008 global financial crisis, and world economic growth rates are almost back where they were after a long, painful but instructive haul, and both developed and emerging economies have added a lot to their financial tool kits. The International Monetary Fund predicts growth in developed countries will drop from the pre-crisis 2.2 percent to 1.5 percent, and in emerging economies from 7.5 percent to 5 percent between 2015 and 2020. While high unemployment, huge debt in developed countries, excessive debt of enterprises in emerging economies, and overcapacity are to blame, declining productivity is another major culprit. Read the transcript http://bit.ly/2z45gNb Read the blog post https://www.asiapathways-adbi.org/2017/09/what-are-the-policy-options-for-reversing-productivity-decline/ Author Li Xu is a research fellow at ADB https://www.adb.org/adbi/about/staff-profiles/li-xu Know more about ADBI’s research on productivity growth http://bit.ly/2gCi99o

In Asia, aging parents get more help from daughters than sons Oct 24, 2017

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Parents in developing Asia tend to spend more on sons but receive higher returns from daughters, turning on its head an age-old belief that sons—not daughters—take care of their aging parents. This is true in the People’s Republic of China, where children are expected to help their parents based on Confucian philosophy, which values filial piety and altruism. Data show that investments in daughters paid off better than money spent on sons. Daughters gave back to their aging parents financial support, and helped with tasks like shopping, housekeeping, accounting, food preparation, telephone calls, and transportation. Read the transcript http://bit.ly/2zyDip4 Read the working paper https://www.adb.org/publications/son-biased-investments-and-old-age-support Author Christine Ho, School of Economics, Singapore Management University Know more about ADBI’s research on supporting the elderly http://bit.ly/2z39tkb

Trade creates jobs in Viet Nam but technology might be harming low-skilled workers Oct 17, 2017

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Low-skilled workers in Viet Nam are hardest hit by market reforms and technology, with efficiency coming at the cost of jobs. Exposure to foreign markets and access to digital technologies raise demand for different types of skills, and while it has been good for the economy, more and more workers are being left behind. Read the transcript http://bit.ly/2iiGGkd Read the original report https://www.adb.org/publications/impact-trade-and-technology-skills-viet-nam About the authors Jennifer Poole, American University and Institute of Labor Economics (IZA) Amelia Santos-Paulino and Maria Sokolova, United Nations Conference on Trade and Development Alisa DiCaprio, ADBI research fellow at the time the report was published Read more about ADBI's research on Trade: http://bit.ly/2ytVl1X Viet Nam: http://bit.ly/2zeIo9M Technology: http://bit.ly/2ijiqyr

Housing lessons from Hong Kong, South Korea, Singapore Oct 17, 2017

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Asia and the Pacific are home to 4.3 billion people, and half the world’s urban population, with 120,000 people moving to cities every day, creating daily demand for 20,000 affordable homes. Some cities, where housing is scarce and costly because they don’t have enough land or they’re where the jobs are concentrated, find it hard to provide enough public housing for a continuously rising urban population. Hong Kong, China; the Republic of Korea; and Singapore have wrestled with this problem for decades. Read the transcript http://bit.ly/2goPbKh Read the original blog post https://www.asiapathways-adbi.org/2017/08/housing-policy-in-the-republic-of-korea/ About the authors Kyung-Hwan Kim is vice minister for land, infrastructure and transport, Republic of Korea Miseon Park is an associate research fellow, Korea Research Institute for Human Settlements. Additional information is from the following From Slums to Sustainable Communities (https://www.habitat.org/sites/default/files/issue-paper.pdf) Tackling Affordability in Asia (https://urbanland.uli.org/economy-markets-trends/tackling-affordability-asia/) Waiting time to get into Hong Kong public housing shoots up a full year over past 12 months (http://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/education-community/article/2070493/waiting-time-get-hong-kong-public-housing-shoots). Know more about ADBI’s research on housing in 2017 http://bit.ly/2x1WOJJ Know more about ADBI’s research on housing in 2016 http://bit.ly/2hYPM24 Read The Housing Challenge in Emerging Asia: Options and Solutions By Naoyuki Yoshino and Matthias Helble https://www.adb.org/publications/housing-challenge-emerging-asia-options-and-solutions

Peer-to-peer lending opens capital access to start ups, but at a risk—David Storey, ADBI analyst Oct 17, 2017

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Peer-to-peer lending is an emerging form of finance enabled by the Internet, matching investors with borrowers to get around rigid bank requirements faced by small and medium-sized enterprises—SMEs—and start-ups. Borrowers apply to a peer-to-peer—P2P—platform of investors. The platform assesses the borrower’s credit risk and gives a credit score based on the platform’s own credit rating model. Investors then split up their money and lend it to borrowers, usually depending on the maturity of the loan and the risk entailed. Read the transcript http://bit.ly/2xL5QyY About the speaker David Storey was an analyst at the Asian Development Bank Institute at the time he presented his research. He is pursuing further studies at Warwick University, UK. Know more about ADBI’s research on SMEs http://bit.ly/2kVLk8U

How demographics affected the fortunes of Japan’s private railways—ADBI Dean Oct 10, 2017

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The idea of sharing future tax revenues with private investors is being promoted by the Asian Development Bank Institute—the ADBI—in Tokyo to help finance the region’s huge demand for infrastructure. But Naoyuki Yoshino, the dean of the institute, warns that future revenues need to be sustained for such financing to succeed in the longer term. Japanese private railway companies played a major role in expanding the country’s transport sector in the 20th century. These companies were much more profitable than Japan National Railways, the public railway operator that was split up into seven private companies three decades ago after incurring massive public debt. Read the transcript http://bit.ly/2yV3gCA About ADBI dean, Naoyuki Yoshino https://www.adb.org/adbi/about/dean Watch an ADBI video about spillover effects http://bit.ly/2eZaTQM Know more about ADBI’s work on spillover effects http://bit.ly/2vVF81w

Remittances reduce poverty in Asia Oct 10, 2017

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Remittances to developing countries in Asia help improve their economies with the net gains from exporting labor, and improve the lives of the poor people forced to work overseas—often for decades—because jobs are lacking at home. A small gain in the contribution of remittances to gross domestic product has led to huge declines in poverty in 10 developing countries, notably Bangladesh, India, Nepal, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka in South Asia; and the People’s Republic of China, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, and Thailand in East and Southeast Asia. A 1% rise between 1981 and 2014 parallels with a 22.6% decline in the poverty gap ratio and a 16.0% decline in the poverty severity ratio—taking into account the average poor household’s spending and the minimum income needed to pay for basic everyday needs. Read the transcript http://bit.ly/2xtH4Do Read the blog post https://www.asiapathways-adbi.org/2017/08/international-remittances-and-poverty-reduction/ Read the working paper https://www.adb.org/publications/international-remittances-and-poverty-reduction Authors Naoyuki Yoshino is the ADBI dean https://www.adb.org/adbi/about/dean Farhad Taghizadeh-Hesary is a professor of economics at Keio University, Tokyo https://www.asiapathways-adbi.org/author/farhad-taghizadeh-hesary/ Miyu Otsuka is a graduate student of economics at Keio University, Tokyo, and Science Po University in Paris https://www.asiapathways-adbi.org/author/miyu-otsuka/ Know more about ADBI’s work on remittances http://bit.ly/2zb1wpK

Economic corridors are looking good for Greater Mekong Oct 10, 2017

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Economic corridors forming around the Greater Mekong Subregion have opened the way to greater development as better infrastructure leads to improved roads and bridges between neighbors. The corridors are boosting economic growth in the GMS, and promoting intraregional trade and investment for Cambodia, Lao People’s Democratic Republic, Myanmar, Viet Nam, Thailand, and Yunnan Province and the Guanxi Autonomous Region in the People’s Republic of China. Questions remain about the net benefits after the high cost of infrastructure; how evenly the benefits are spread; and how border security can be maintained in the face of trafficking of people, drugs, timber, wildlife, weapons, and black market goods. Read the transcript http://bit.ly/2xvHJ2l Read the working paper http://bit.ly/2y6Etia About the author Manabu Fujimura, a professor at Aoyama Gakuin University, Tokyo. Know more about ADBI’s work https://bit.ly/2SkWboG

Ha Noi can offer more attractive terms to private investors in a new ring road—ADBI Dean Oct 02, 2017

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Ha Noi, the Vietnamese capital, is renowned for its congested traffic. The government wants to build a third ring road around the city. But it doesn’t have enough money for such a major project, with two other ring roads already under way. Some of the construction is being funded on a BOT basis—build, operate, transfer, whereby the investor constructs and maintains the ring road and gets the toll revenue for a certain period before handing it back to the public—and official development assistance from the Japan International Cooperation Agency. However, private investors aren’t much interested because the expected returns on investment are too low. How can the government increase the returns to make investment more attractive to private companies? Read the transcript http://bit.ly/2wsCssC About ADBI dean, Naoyuki Yoshino https://www.adb.org/adbi/about/dean Watch an ADBI video about spillover effects http://bit.ly/2eZaTQM Know more about ADBI’s work on spillover effects http://bit.ly/2vVF81w

Beyond speaking truth to power—Adam Posen, head, Peterson Institute for International Economics Oct 02, 2017

Show notes

Think tanks try to influence the powerful—people who hold government office and make decisions—by independently speaking the truth and not being afraid to do so. Adam Posen, president of the Peterson Institute for International Economics, a Washington think tank, says that doesn’t seem to be enough these days. Read the transcript http://bit.ly/2kfLNSX Watch the complete presentation http://bit.ly/2yCzvGD Know more about the Global Think Tank Summit https://www.adb.org/news/events/global-think-tank-summit-2017

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