Asian Economy and Finance:

A Post-Crisis Perspective
1. Auflage 2006
ISBN: 978-0-387-23383-3
Verlag: Springer-Verlag
Format: PDF
Kopierschutz: Adobe DRM (»Systemvoraussetzungen)

E-Book, Englisch, 309 Seiten

This book offers the newest knowledge related to relevant themes on the Asian economies as well as the latest concepts. In a succinct manner, it deals with the principal normative and positive strands with which one need to be properly familiar in this subject area. The tightly written volume covers a great deal of ground and imparts knowledge on the Asian economy related themes to students, researchers and policy makers alike.

Dr. Dilip K. Das was educated at the Graduate Institute of International Studies, University of Geneva, Switzerland. A professor of international trade and international finance and banking, he was associated with Webster College Geneva; ESSEC, Paris; INSEAD, Fontainebleau, France; Australian National University, Canberra; Graduate School of Business, University of Sydney, Sydney. He has published extensively on international trade, international finance, international business, globalization related issues and the Asian economy in the recent past. He has worked as a consultant for the World Bank, Asian Development Bank and the USAID.

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Chapter 2 ECONOMIC DIVERSITY IN ASIA (p. 27-28)

2.1 HETEROGENEITY

Geographically, Asia stretches between Afghanistan in the west to the Korean peninsula in the east. This crescent-shaped region comprises several discernible, distinct, and dissimilar sub-regions and countries, which are at different stages of economic growth, and have widely differing economic characteristic attributes. While diversity is a universal feature, Asia represents an extreme form of it. Asia comprises some high-performing sub-groups of economies and those that have performed relatively poorly during the post-war era. Each economy has its idiosyncratic set of assets and liabilities.

Diversity exists not only in economic aspects of Asian life, but also in social, political, religious, cultural, ethnicity, linguistics, geographical features and systems of governments. Some eleven languages and eighty-seven dialects are spoken in the Philippines. Eight of these are native tongues for about 90 percent of the population. All eight belong to the Malay–Polynesian language family and are related to Indonesian and Malay, but no two languages are mutually comprehensible.

Indonesia, the most ethnically diverse country in the world has three hundred ethnic groups that follow four major religions, namely, Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism and Islam. The Indonesian government takes pride in its pluralistic society and describes it as “unity in diversity.” The diversity on various frontswas, and continues to be, far greater than that in European Union (EU) of 1537 and in North American Free Trade Area (NAFTA). Compared to them, Asia has much greater diversity in terms of levels of economic development, sizes of GDP, economic and industrial structures, depth and sophistication in financial markets, and broad economic and financial institutional frameworks.

A statistical comparison of economic indicators of the Asian economies clearly brings home their inter-country diversity. Added to that is the intracountry diversity, which is also enormous. Many countries contain differing ethnic groups of different races,who followdifferent religions and social norms and practices. For instance, the Han people are the China’s largest ethnic group, but 56 ethic groups inhabit this vast country; 18 of them have population of one million or more. The largest of these minority ethnic groups is Zhuang, with a population of 16 million. Various ethnic minority groups live with the majority Han population, while some minorities prefer to live in separate compact groups. This diversity exists all over Asia. A small country like Myanmar has 135 different ethnic groups of eight races. Large Chinese, Indian and Malay populations are found in many East and Southeast Asian countries. In many countries they are minorities, and in some they are either large minorities or even majorities. These populations groups have maintained many of their native characteristics, yet have assimilated well in their societies of domicile. Families that are part of the Chinese Diaspora have earned a reputation for being astute business people and their business acumen is admired all over Asia. For instance, while the Chinese constitute less than three percent of the total population in Indonesia, they control as much as seventy percent of all private sector economic activity. The phenomenon has been attributed to a natural affinity the Chinese possess for business endeavors. This acumen is believed to be rooted in the Confucian work-ethic, the hierarchal structure of the family, which lent itself to effective creation of large businesses, even conglomerates.

Social indicators like literacy and life expectancy data for these countries also display extreme diversity in Asia. This heterogeneity reflects the economic diversity of the Asian economies. For instance, Korea was the most literate country having 1 percent illiteracy among male population and 4 percent among female. Cambodia was at the opposite extreme, with the corresponding proportions being at 41 percent and 79 percent, respectively. Likewise, life expectancy varies widely. In Hong Kong SAR and Japan it is more than 80 years, while in countries in Indochina (Cambodia, Lao PDR andVietnam) it is merely 54 years.