Tuesday, June 12th, 2007

An East Asian Renaissance: Ideas for Growth

Authors Present New World Bank Publication in Tokyo

A new World Bank publication "An East Asian Renaissance: Ideas for Growth" was presented at the TDLC on June 12, 2007 by lead authors Dr. Homi Kharas, former Bank Chief Economist for East Asia & Pacific, and Dr. Indermit Gill, Economic Adviser. Professor Hisanobu Shishido of Hitotsubashi Unversity and Mr, Yoshio Okubo, Executive Vice President of the Japan Foundation joined the two as commentators, leading lively discussions with participants connecting via videoconference from 3 sites: Nagoya University’s Graduate School of International Development, Hokkaido University’s Graduate school of International Media, Communication, and Tourism Studies, as well as Ritsumeikan Asia Pacific University.

Dr.Kharas began by outlining the lessons learned from the financial crisis in Asia 10 years ago and the need for new tools to think about the developments in the region since then. “East Asia is now a middle income story” said Dr. Kharas. “…and middle income countries have the greatest difficulty in growing. This is the greatest challenge in the region”.

According to Dr. Kharas, the transition to a high income country requires specialization of production, innovation and advanced skills. This in turn produces stresses such as urbanization, inequality and corruption, and public policies must be in place to deal with these problems to sustain growth.

Dr. Gill followed with a presentation of country specific assessments, including China, Indonesia and Thailand.

Commending the new publication as “long awaited by development economists”, Professor Shishido added that the implications of aging in Asia were substantial and needed to be considered. Mr. Okubo touched on tendencies in the past to explain East Asian growth through culture, which could be harmful, and praised the publication for its rigorous, empirical approach. Mr. Okubo also spoke on financial development, pointing out that while a healthier banking sector was encouraging, there may be areas where vulnerabilities still exist relating to the way in which banks have been dealing with credit.

Questions were taken from participating sites, ranging from specific prescriptions for less developed countries such as Vietnam, to policy implications and the role of governments.

For more information, see the World Bank East Asian Renaissance page.