Asian Economic Policy Review最新文献

{"title":"Comment on “Indian Economy: Performance, Policies, Politics, and Prospects and Challenges”","authors":"Devesh Kapur","doi":"10.1111/aepr.12490","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/aepr.12490","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Panagariya (<span>2025</span>) provides a cogent summary of the performance of India's economy and the policies that shaped them and concludes with an optimist prognosis of India's future prospects despite some enduring challenges. These comments focus on three issues highlighted in the paper, continuing versus change, from socialism to statism, and future prospects, focusing particularly on the past quarter century.</p><p>There is broad agreement that 1991 was a decisive break point in Indian economic policy. Subsequently, however, and especially after 1998 when the Vajpayee-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government came to power, while each new government advanced new programs and projects, changes in economic <i>policies</i> writ large, have been more incremental. Indeed even many programs have seen continuity although the pace of change has varied. Thus, the Vajpayee-led NDA government launched a countrywide rural roads and highway construction program, which expanded over the next decade under successive governments. Indeed many public programs, be it housing, village electrification, drinking water, and sanitation, have been in existence for decades, but progress was lethargic. What changed under the Modi government was the ambition—universal coverage—and the rapid pace of implementation.</p><p>Similarly, the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government launched the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (NREGS). While much critiqued at the time, the program continued under its successor NDA government and had large positive externalities on rural wages and poverty, besides providing a safety net during the COVID years.</p><p>The continuity is also reflected in two major achievements of the Modi government—digital public infrastructure (DPI) and Goods and Services Tax (GST). The foundation of DPI—the universal biometric ID, <i>Aadhaar</i>, as well as the intellectual groundwork of the GST—were initiated by the predecessor government. Indeed continuity rather than disjuncture has also been the hallmark of India's economic growth in the past quarter century, which has not been especially different across different governments (and was probably strongest in the first post-2000 decade).</p><p>On policies, while there has been steady liberalization in a wide range of sectors that were hitherto taboo (including defense), the now chronic high fiscal deficits are emblematic of both an entrenched political economy and a tenacious <i>dirigisme</i> that is the DNA of the Indian state, no matter which government is in power. General government final consumption expenditure as percent of gross domestic product (GDP) was 10.4% in 2004 and 10.3% in 2013 (the last years of the Vajpayee and Manmohan Singh government's, respectively) and 10.3% in 2022. Capital employed in central public sector enterprises (CPSEs) expanded from ₹5 trillion to ₹17.7 trillion and then ₹38.2 trillion over the same period. Six of 10 largest Indian companies (by mar","PeriodicalId":45430,"journal":{"name":"Asian Economic Policy Review","volume":"20 1","pages":"97-99"},"PeriodicalIF":4.5,"publicationDate":"2024-08-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/aepr.12490","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143116681","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Comment on “The Sri Lankan Economy: From Optimism to Debt Trap”","authors":"Shantayanan Devarajan","doi":"10.1111/aepr.12491","DOIUrl":"10.1111/aepr.12491","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Athukorala (<span>2025</span>) makes a convincing case that Sri Lanka's debt crisis of 2022 was not only due to recent, reckless economic policies—a massive tax cut, financing fiscal deficits by printing money, repaying foreign debt out of reserves—but the culmination of decades of an “anti-tradable” bias that left the economy unable to manage high levels of debt, especially in the wake of the COVID-19 crisis. The analysis is based on a sweeping tour of Sri Lankan economic history, starting before independence and ending with the current International Monetary Fund-supported program of 2023.</p><p>This <i>longue durée</i> helps resolve a puzzle about the country's policy direction. In the late 1970s, Sri Lanka was one of the first developing countries to liberalize trade. The economy boomed. Many people heralded Sri Lanka as a textbook case of successful trade reform (see, for example, Castro & Devarajan, <span>2006</span>). Nevertheless, the country soon began adopting anti-tradable policies, which accelerated in the 2000s leading to the collapse of 2022. Athukorala observes that the trade liberalization was accompanied by laxist macroeconomic policies, such as an overvalued exchange rate, which made the reform difficult to sustain. The early 1980s also saw a massive increase in public investment, which contributed to the real exchange rate appreciation, and to the economic boom.</p><p>My comments on Athukorala (<span>2025</span>) are aimed at broadening the set of policies that contributed to the debt crisis, and exploring why Sri Lankan policymakers chose these policies.</p><p>In addition to anti-tradable policies, Sri Lanka has followed at least two other policies that have undermined the economy's growth. Introduced in 1958, the Paddy Lands Act requires farmers who lease land from the state (which are most farmers) to grow only paddy. Atukorala mentions the Paddy Lands Act as part of the move toward a closed economy in the 1950s. The Act is still in force—70 years later. Paddy is the least productive and least lucrative crop (World Bank, <span>2021</span>). This policy has made agriculture the least productive sector in the economy and kept farmers poor.</p><p>Second, Sri Lanka has some of the most restrictive labor regulations in the world (Abidoye <i>et al</i>., <span>2009</span>). Workers with 20 years of service receive an average of 30 months of severance pay. Not surprisingly, employment growth in the formal, private sector has been sluggish. The situation became serious in the 1980s when the youth bulge was entering the labor market. To quell violent protests, the government expanded employment in the public sector, another low-productivity sector. In addition, the public sector pays higher wages, provides better benefits, and is a job for life (Hausmann <i>et al</i>., <span>2020</span>). This raises the reservation wage for working in the private sector, making it harder to compete in world markets.</p><p>In short, Athukorala'","PeriodicalId":45430,"journal":{"name":"Asian Economic Policy Review","volume":"20 1","pages":"172-173"},"PeriodicalIF":4.5,"publicationDate":"2024-08-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/aepr.12491","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142189245","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Export Diversification in Bangladesh: Overcoming Policy Impediments","authors":"Edimon Ginting,&nbsp;Mohammad Abdur Razzaque,&nbsp;Rana Hasan","doi":"10.1111/aepr.12487","DOIUrl":"10.1111/aepr.12487","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Despite substantial socio-economic progress driven by the readymade garment (RMG) industry, Bangladesh faces a severe export concentration due to its heavy reliance on a single export sector. This present paper examines the policy barriers hindering export diversification in Bangladesh and suggests measures to tackle the problem. It highlights that excessive tariff protection has favored import-competing sectors creating an anti-export bias. To promote export diversification, Bangladesh must implement effective tariff rationalization measures to address the policy-induced disincentives for exports. Additionally, attracting foreign direct investment, improving the investment climate, and addressing infrastructural and logistical challenges are crucial for enhancing the non-RMG export response.</p>","PeriodicalId":45430,"journal":{"name":"Asian Economic Policy Review","volume":"20 1","pages":"57-75"},"PeriodicalIF":4.5,"publicationDate":"2024-08-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141933542","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Comment on “Pakistan's Economy: Fallout of 2022 Economic Distress Magnified the Need for Structural Reforms”","authors":"Takashi Kurosaki","doi":"10.1111/aepr.12489","DOIUrl":"10.1111/aepr.12489","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Van der Eng (<span>2025</span>) provides a balanced overview of problems faced by Pakistan's economy today. First, as a development economist watching Pakistan since the mid-1980s, I agree with the structural reforms that are needed for Pakistan to sustain growth and reduce poverty in the coming decades. It is disappointing to find similar remarks repeatedly on the need for structural reforms but that elite capture is the underlying source of the difficulties for these reforms. In 2002 and 2003, I was involved in a project to prepare a long-term country strategy paper for the Japanese government with respect to official development assistance to Pakistan. Our final report pointed out the root cause of the less than expected performance of Pakistan as the weak and fragile monitoring capacity of citizens against the rent-seeking ruling elites (JICA, <span>2003</span>). Pakistani economists cited by van der Eng (<span>2025</span>) vividly indicate that the problem still remains after more than two decades.</p><p>Second, I would like to attempt to enrichen the analysis by van der Eng (<span>2025</span>) with a longer term horizon covering the pre-independence period. It is highly appropriate for van der Eng (<span>2025</span>) to pay attention to long-term perspectives, with an excellent summary on the industrialization during the 1960s under the military government of Ayub Khan. The industrialization during the 1960s contributed to the higher gross domestic product (GDP) per capita in Pakistan than in India in the 1980s. I once estimated GDP separately for areas currently in India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh, for the period c.1900–1947 (Kurosaki, <span>2017</span>) and have recently revised those estimates (Kurosaki, <span>2024</span>). Figure 1 shows that the high growth period during the 1960s was preceded by positive economic growth in Pakistan during the 1950s and the pre-independence period. Kurosaki (<span>2017</span>) shows that agricultural growth driven by institutional reforms just after independence and the canal irrigation development during the colonial period were the main factors of this early catching up. Areas currently in Pakistan indeed started from a much more unfavorable level than indicated by van der Eng (<span>2025</span>).</p><p>This has two policy implications. First, the achievement of Pakistan's economy has been more substantial than indicated by analyses focusing on more recent periods. In other words, the recent economic distress was indeed more damaging to the welfare of Pakistanis with a longer time horizon. Second, the agricultural sector has been important, and considering its current productivity level below the global frontier, the sector still has potential to contribute to economic growth and poverty reduction in Pakistan in the coming years.</p>","PeriodicalId":45430,"journal":{"name":"Asian Economic Policy Review","volume":"20 1","pages":"147-148"},"PeriodicalIF":4.5,"publicationDate":"2024-08-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/aepr.12489","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141933445","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"South Asia's Conundrum: Turning Potential into Sustained Progress","authors":"Sanjay Kathuria","doi":"10.1111/aepr.12488","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/aepr.12488","url":null,"abstract":"<p>South Asia has long been a region of untapped potential, lagging behind East Asia in economic progress, despite some remarkable successes. “China plus one” presents another opportunity for the region to capitalize on its demographic dividend. Focusing on Bangladesh, India, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka, this article highlights major hurdles to their sustained progress, including protectionist trade policies, inadequate human capital, and a small labor force relative to population. For Sri Lanka and Pakistan, there are the additional challenges of coping with ongoing economic crises. The analysis suggests options to regaining/sustaining macroeconomic stability, while factoring in the fiscal dimension of climate change; acting urgently to deepen global and regional trade, to seize the moment; addressing the near crisis in human capital in many countries; accelerating digital solutions to improve governance and service delivery; and using regional cooperation to help build climate resilience. The role of business elites in influencing economic policies is also discussed.</p>","PeriodicalId":45430,"journal":{"name":"Asian Economic Policy Review","volume":"20 1","pages":"27-51"},"PeriodicalIF":4.5,"publicationDate":"2024-08-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143110268","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Comment on “Recent Developments in Indian Central Banking: Flying through Turbulence but Aided by Some Tailwinds”","authors":"Viral V. Acharya","doi":"10.1111/aepr.12482","DOIUrl":"10.1111/aepr.12482","url":null,"abstract":"&lt;p&gt;My comments on Ray and Mohan (&lt;span&gt;2025&lt;/span&gt;) are focused on three aspects.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;First, while India's recovery since COVID has been especially noteworthy in 2023–24, it has been a “K-shaped” recovery nevertheless. Depending on which part of India one talks about, it is either booming (urban and formal sector) or it still remains scarred from the pandemic (rural and informal sector). Since the pandemic, an operating profit-to-sales gap has opened up widely between large firms (+1.5%) versus small firms (−0.5%). While large manufacturing firms have been able to retain their size, small manufacturing firms have contracted by 14%. Small firms and establishments are important in India as they contribute to over 40% of overall labor in India. Separately, 40% of labor in India is also in agriculture. Both small firms and agriculture tend to have a greater presence in rural India. Hence, while wages in urban India have remained elevated far in excess of the inflation rate, rural wages even if increasing nominally have been outpaced by inflation for most of 2022. This fall in real rural wages has interacted with other shocks to weather and commodity prices to create a weak rural, informal, small-firm economy.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Given these observations, the stability of consumer price inflation in India at 6% over the past 4 years, 2% above the mandated 4% target for the Monetary Policy Committee in India, must be viewed in light of the cumulative erosion of the purchasing power of those that have experienced negative real wage growth. In sum, it would be good for Ray and Mohan to touch upon the issue of real wage growth in India, its distribution, its likely effect on consumption, and what inflation and monetary policy has done or can do about it in the challenging years since COVID. Indeed, has monetary policy contributed to the K-shape of the recovery in the first place?&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Second, a range of initiatives has been undertaken by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) since 2017 to resolve the nonperforming assets (NPAs) of the Indian banking system, capitalizing on the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code (IBC). These have now come to fruition in that gross and net NPAs of scheduled commercial banks were down in September 2022 to 5% and 1.3%, respectively, from peaks of 11.2% and 6.1% in 2018. Nevertheless, there are critical views of the IBC that stem from the facts that: (i) debt in India continues to perform closer to equity, recovering only 39% for resolutions under the IBC, which makes recoveries for bank loans in India virtually half of the global average; (ii) the average time to resolution since the filing of a case has been 561 days, about twice what was originally envisaged; and (iii) a phenomenal 45% of the cases under the IBC get liquidated. The contrasting salubrious view of the IBC arises from the observations that: (i) as a result of the banking sector clean-up, capacity utilization of distressed sectors has improved and overall risen to close to 75% at p","PeriodicalId":45430,"journal":{"name":"Asian Economic Policy Review","volume":"20 1","pages":"124-125"},"PeriodicalIF":4.5,"publicationDate":"2024-08-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/aepr.12482","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141881548","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Comment on “Recent Developments in Indian Central Banking: Flying through Turbulence but Aided by Some Tailwinds”","authors":"Poonam Gupta","doi":"10.1111/aepr.12484","DOIUrl":"10.1111/aepr.12484","url":null,"abstract":"&lt;p&gt;Ray and Mohan (&lt;span&gt;2025&lt;/span&gt;) is a well-written and accessible paper that specifically deals with three issues in the context of the mandate of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI).&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;First, it analyses the level and composition of inflation during the past 20 years, comparing them before and after India adopted the Inflation Targeting (IT) regime in 2016. It notices that while the level of inflation has come down since the adoption of IT, the decline may not be attributed solely to this new monetary policy framework. The decline in inflation levels has been likely as much due to external factors, outside the control of monetary policy, as to IT. This argument is bolstered by the observation that the level of inflation post IT is as high as seen from 1995–1996 to 2007–2008 (the present paper dismisses the period of high inflation from 2008–2009 to 2012–2013 as an aberration).&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;This discussion would have been richer if the present paper had also observed, as seen in Ray and Mohan's (&lt;span&gt;2025&lt;/span&gt;) fig. 1, and as pointed out in Eichengreen &lt;i&gt;et al&lt;/i&gt;. (&lt;span&gt;2021&lt;/span&gt;), that the volatility of inflation has been lower, while the transmission of monetary policy has improved during the post IT period. Besides, on technical grounds, the arguments regarding the relative levels of inflation would have been stronger had Ray and Mohan accounted for shocks to inflation, both domestic or external, and still established them.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Be that as it may, Ray and Mohan could have made a significant contribution by taking a view on how the framework may evolve further as it completes 8 years of existence later this year. Among other things, does the current wide band of inflation, 2–6%, serve India well? How and at what frequency should it revise the inflation basket? How may the wide gap between the consumer price index and wholesale price index be understood better and bridged?&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Second, Ray and Mohan acknowledge the recent strengthening of the banking sector. India has successfully resolved nearly a decade-long asset quality crisis, through a series of policy measures, such as mergers, recapitalization, Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code, asset quality review, and Prompt Corrective Action.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;An issue of interest is how the sector is likely to evolve hereon. What role can the RBI play as a regulator while weighing the trade-offs between growth with stability? How may the ownership structure of the banks evolve to make the sector larger, more resilient, and more growth supportive? Among other things, would further consolidation of the sector unleash additional operational and allocational efficiency gains?&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Weaker asset quality and poorer efficiency have been almost fully aligned with public sector banks in India for much of the past 30 years, barring the exceptions of a few years. Past improvements in the functioning of public sector banks, after each episode of restructuring and recapitalization, have not lasted beyond a few years. Ev","PeriodicalId":45430,"journal":{"name":"Asian Economic Policy Review","volume":"20 1","pages":"126-127"},"PeriodicalIF":4.5,"publicationDate":"2024-07-31","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/aepr.12484","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141869548","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Pakistan's Economy: Fallout of 2022 Economic Distress Magnified the Need for Structural Reforms","authors":"Pierre van der Eng","doi":"10.1111/aepr.12486","DOIUrl":"10.1111/aepr.12486","url":null,"abstract":"<p>This present paper discusses the main issues gripping Pakistan's economy. It takes a long-term perspective to indicate that several economic issues are structural, going back at least 60 years. The present paper substantiates that Pakistan's current issues were aggravated during 2022, particularly by the damage caused by large scale floods. Government relief efforts increased budget deficits, public debt, and inflation. Crop failures dampened export earnings, increased the current account deficit and added urgency to the need to mobilize foreign exchange for foreign debt servicing during 2023. In 2024, resolving foreign debt servicing obligations is the touchstone for achieving macroeconomic stability and initiating reforms to change structural factors inhibiting Pakistan's economic growth.</p>","PeriodicalId":45430,"journal":{"name":"Asian Economic Policy Review","volume":"20 1","pages":"128-146"},"PeriodicalIF":4.5,"publicationDate":"2024-07-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/aepr.12486","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141744624","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"ASEAN: Editors' Overview","authors":"Takatoshi Ito,&nbsp;Kazumasa Iwata,&nbsp;Colin McKenzie,&nbsp;Shujiro Urata","doi":"10.1111/aepr.12480","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/aepr.12480","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":45430,"journal":{"name":"Asian Economic Policy Review","volume":"19 2","pages":"153-171"},"PeriodicalIF":4.5,"publicationDate":"2024-07-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141624294","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Japan Center for Economic Research","authors":"","doi":"10.1111/aepr.12485","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/aepr.12485","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":45430,"journal":{"name":"Asian Economic Policy Review","volume":"19 2","pages":"323"},"PeriodicalIF":4.5,"publicationDate":"2024-07-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/aepr.12485","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141624232","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}