Stunted and Distorted Industrialization in Myanmar

More than 15 years have passed since Myanmar embarked on its transition from a centrally planned economy to a market-oriented one. The purpose of this paper is to provide a bird-eye's view of industrial changes from the 1990s up to 2005. The industrial sector showed a preliminary development in the first half of the 1990s due to an "open door" policy and liberalization measures. However, a brief period of growth failed to effect any changes in the economic fundamentals. The industrial sector still suffers from poor power supplies, limited access to imported raw materials and machinery, exchange rate instability, limited credit, and frequent changes of government regulation. Public ownership is still high in key infrastructure sectors, and has failed to provide sufficient services to private industries. What the government must do first is to get the fundamentals right.

Complex Vertical FDI and Firm Heterogeneity: Evidence from East Asia

In this paper we statistically test the validity of the mechanics of complex VFDI in Japanese machinery FDI to East Asia; we do this by estimating a multiple-spatial lag model. From the theoretical point of view, in complex VFDI, the production activity of affiliates in a given country is positively related to that in neighboring countries which have large differences in factor prices with the given country. Our empirical results show that such mechanics of complex VFDI work in Japanese FDI to East Asia, and that they work more strongly in the MNEs with higher productivity. These results have an important implication for the policies of developing countries in attracting FDI.

Agglomeration versus Fragmentation:A Comparison of East Asia and Europe

Inspired by the observed contrasting patterns of industrial distribution in East Asia and Europe, this paper conducts an empirical clarification of the difference in spatial relationships among countries within a region for the electric machinery industry by use of spatial econometric analysis. The results indicate that, while production in the electric machinery industry in a country is positively correlated with that of neighboring countries in East Asia, there is no significant spatial correlation in Europe. Such a difference in spatial interdependence has important implications for economic development in those regions.

The business management strategy of Iran's large apparel firms : overview of results from a questionnaire survey and interviews 2009-2011

This paper is an overview of the results from a questionnaire survey and subsequent supplementary interviews of Iran's large apparel firms conducted by the author in 2009-2011. Most of the large apparel firms in Iran are based in Tehran and have been in business for some twenty years. They have a solid business with regular customers, but in general have hesitated to expand the size of their firms. Following the relaxation of restrictions on the procurement of raw materials that existed in the 1990s, the results of survey and interviews show that the firms have developed new channels of procurement although they depend to a considerable degree on imported raw materials and machinery. They have managed to maintain their level of output even with the rapid increase in imports since 2000, although the number of firms has decreased. Low-priced Chinese products have basically not been their rivals; instead, the inflow of foreign name-brand products have hit them heavily.