Attempts to understand China’s role in global value chains have often noted the case of Apple's iPhone production, in particular the fact that the value added during the Chinese portion of the iPhone’s supply chain is no more than 4%. However, when we examine the Chinese economy as...

This paper sets out to examine how innovation enhances export competitiveness: The proposition that export volume becomes enhanced as more productivity-enhancing innovation is captured by the exporting economy is the focus of this study. From a Schumpeterian perspective, innovation can be...

As the success of East Asian countries has shown, labor-intensive industry is recognized to lead economic growth in the early stages of development, utilizing relatively low labor costs. This same growth process has already started in South and South East Asian LDCs since the mid-1990s. However,...

This paper addresses some salient features of how some of "successful" East Asian economies have been faring in terms of enhancing their export competitiveness. That export becomes more divergent in terms of its unit price as more technology-enhancing economic activity is undertaken within an...

This paper explores the consequences of the emerging rivalry between Japanese and Chinese manufacturers. It focuses specifically on industrial organisation, one of the key factors that underlie the competitiveness of manufacturing industries. The question to be asked is what happens when...

This paper investigates how the garment industry escapes this vicious cycle and argues for the validity of labor-intensive industry as a starting point for full-fledged industrialization, even though it might at first seem to be a digression from the path to an innovation-led economy. By...

Southeast Asia faces mounting competition -- Malaysia : the quintessential maturing tiger economy -- Analyzing comparative advantage and industrial change : reading the export trade tea leaves -- Imports and foreign direct investment : competition and technology transfer -- Leading and faltering...

The Southeast Asian Tigers feel threatened. Even though their growth rates have remained above the average for the world and also above the average for developing countries, their economic performance falls short of that in the first half of the 1990s. The underlying worry is that it presages...