The Relationship of Provincial Economic Level and Child Injury Mortality in Thailand: A Cross-Sectional Analysis in a Middle Income Country

The objective of this cross-sectional study was to examine the relationship of provincial economic development indices with incidences of child injury mortality in Thailand from 1999 - 2001. All injury deaths among children age 1-14 years were included. The independent variables included gross provincial product per capita (GPP/c), poverty and inequality indices, material and social deprivation indices, population in rural/ urban areas, and migration. Due to multicollinearity of such variables, the 76 provinces were categorized by GPP/c quartile, and means of overall injury, drowning, and transport-related mortality rates were compared among quartile groups. Spearman’s rho correlation between GPP/c and injury mortality rates was also performed. Finally, factor analysis was employed to create a set of factors to be treated as uncorrelated variables and stepwise multiple regression was carried out for the effects of the factors on injury mortality rates. A significant direct relationship was observed between GPP/c and overall injury mortality among children age 1-4 years, and 10-14 year-olds of both genders. Drowning was the main cause of this relationship among children age 1-4 years, and transport-related injury was the principle cause among children age 10-14 years. Conversely, provinces with lower GPP/c experienced higher injury mortality rates among school-age children 5-9 years old for both genders, mostly due to drowning. Factor analysis, and multiple regression results confirmed the relationships between economic development and injury mortality rates. These findings revealed that economic development had an adverse impact on injury-related mortality among children 1 to 4 and 10 to14 in Thailand.

Diverging Development Paths of the Electronics Industry in Korea and Taiwan

This paper examines the process and mechanism of economic development in the Republic of Korea and Taiwan through a comparative analysis of the electronics industry in each country. The paper will show that in its initial stage of development, the electronics industry in both economies had the same type of dual structure: a domestic demand sector based on the protected domestic market, and an export sector intended to capitalize on low-wage labor for the international market. However, this dual structure in the two economies faded away after the mid-1970s as their respective indigenous export-oriented enterprises began to develop. But the primary industrial players in each economy were very different. In Korea they were comprehensive electronics manufacturers affiliated with chaebols, and in Taiwan they were small and medium-size enterprises. Differences in the two economies' development mechanisms have brought about this divergence in development paths. In Korea this mechanism has been characterized by the government's positive role and the chaebol's readiness to react to the government's leadership. In Taiwan the development mechanism has been based on the private sector independent from the government. As an extension of such diverged development paths, ICs and personal computers showed spectacular growth in Korea and Taiwan after the 1980s. The development of ICs in Korea was primarily the result of a decisive role played by the chaebol's sizable financial resources, while the competitiveness in personal computers largely reflected the agility and flexibility of Taiwanese small and medium-size enterprises.

Myanmar's Economic Relations with China: Can China Support the Myanmar Economy?

Against the background of closer diplomatic, political and security ties between Myanmar and China since 1988, their economic relations have also grown stronger throughout the 1990s and up to 2005. China is now a major supplier of consumer and capital goods to Myanmar, in particular through border trade. China also provides a large amount of economic cooperation in the areas of infrastructure, energy and state-owned economic enterprises. Nevertheless, Myanmar’s trade with China has failed to have a substantial impact on its broad-based economic and industrial development. China’s economic cooperation apparently supports the present regime, but its effects on the whole economy will be limited with an unfavorable macroeconomic environment and distorted incentives structure. As a conclusion, strengthened economic ties with China will be instrumental in regime survival, but will not be a powerful force affecting the process of economic development in Myanmar.

Effectiveness and Challenges of Three Economic Corridors of the Greater Mekong Sub-region

Since the Greater Mekong Sub-region (GMS) program began in 1992, activities have expanded and flourished. The three economic corridors are composed of the East-West, North-South, and Southern; these are the most important parts of the flagship program. This article presents an evaluation of these economic corridors and their challenges in accordance with the regional distribution of population and income, population pyramids of member countries, and trade relations of member economies.

Institutional Development of Capital Markets in Nine Asian Economies

This paper is conducting a comparative analysis of the development of securities markets in nine Asian economies: Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia, the Philippines, and China. This study focuses on two aspects: the history and institutional development of securities market, such as legal systems, payment systems, etc. From the analyses, this paper reveals several common features of the development of securities markets in nine Asian economies. First, most economies had an informal capital market in the early period of their history. Second, the background of the foundation of their official markets was influenced by experiences of colonization. Third, most governments recognized the importance of the capital market for economic development and had a positive attitude in promoting the market. Fourth, statistics clearly showed that most economies experienced several booms in their capital market from the late 1980s.