International Development

FSI researchers consider international development from a variety of angles. They analyze ideas such as how public action and good governance are cornerstones of economic prosperity in Mexico and how investments in high school education will improve China’s economy.

They are looking at novel technological interventions to improve rural livelihoods, like the development implications of solar power-generated crop growing in Northern Benin.

FSI academics also assess which political processes yield better access to public services, particularly in developing countries. With a focus on health care, researchers have studied the political incentives to embrace UNICEF’s child survival efforts and how a well-run anti-alcohol policy in Russia affected mortality rates.

FSI’s work on international development also includes training the next generation of leaders through pre- and post-doctoral fellowships as well as the Draper Hills Summer Fellows Program.

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Chairman of the American Institute in Taiwan’s Board of Trustees James Moriarty visited Shorenstein APARC on May 3rd for a seminar titled “The United States and Taiwan: An Enduring Friendship.” The former United States ambassador spoke about historical, contemporary and future U.S.-Taiwan relations and addressed the challenges and merits of democratic systems.

A recording of the event is avilabe below. A transcript of the proceedings is availabe below.

Read a full account of the event in The Stanford Daily News.

 

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Ambassador Moriarty at APARC
From left to Right: Kharis Templeman, Ambassador James Moriarty, Ambassador Karl Eikenberry
Thom Holme
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Japan is known to have an exceptionally low level of inward foreign direct investment (FDI). The promotion of inward FDI is one of the policy goals of Abenomics structural reforms. This present paper studies the accumulation of Japan's inward FDI stock during the first 3 years of Abenomics (2012–2015), and finds no evidence that Japan's inward FDI stock increased more than the trend before Abenomics started would have predicted. A comparison of the main policies for promoting inward FDI that have been implemented to the real and perceived impediments to inward FDI reveals that it may be advisable to shift the emphasis of the policy to address more regulatory and administrative issues and to reduce the cost of doing business in Japan.

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Asian Economic Policy Review
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Takeo Hoshi
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Using a unique dataset on all major corporate restructuring events in Japan between 1981 and 2010, we assess changes in the role of the main bank in guiding corporate turarounds, and the economic consequences of these changes for distressed firms. We identify firms in distress among all listed firms based on accounting data, and we separately identify firms undergoing corporate restructuring based on a newspaper search for the Japanese term “saiken”. Even though the ratio of distressed firms has not declined, the incidence of saiken restructuring by such firms has become less frequent after the 1990s, indicating a decline in the governance and rescue role of the main bank. When firms undergo saiken, they adopt real adjustments in terms of labor, assets and finance. While the intensity of these adjustments has also declined over time, saiken firms make more significant adjustments than distressed firms that do not undergo restructuring. The role of saiken was an important part of corporate renewal in Japan, and it has declined. In line with existing research, these findings underscore changes in Japanese corporate governance, in particular regarding the decline of the monitoring and restructuring function of the main bank.

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Journal of the Japanese and International Economies
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Takeo Hoshi
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The event is jointly sponsored by the Japan Program at the Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center and the Japan Foundation Center for Global Partnership.

 

Japan is one of the world’s most prominent military space powers around. With the inescapable ambiguity of dual-use, Japan has acquired its impressive capabilities in full view of a pacifist public and under constitutional constraints. At this stage, as the country races to keep abreast of the latest space technology trends, its national security trajectories are openly and officially sanctioned in both law and policy. These realities are not well understood by Japan’s allies or rivals, which limits our appreciation about where Japan is headed in its own national interest in the region, the world, and beyond.  

 

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Saadia M. Pekkanen works on outer space security, law, and policy. Her regional expertise is in the international relations of Japan/Asia. She earned Master’s degrees from Columbia University and Yale Law School, and a doctorate from Harvard University in political science. She holds the Job and Gertrud Tamaki Professorship at the University of Washington (UW). She has published a half-dozen books on space technology and geopolitics, and is working now on The Age of Newspace. She serves as Co-Chair of the U.S. Japan Space Forum, directs both the Space Security Initiative (SSI) and the project on Emerging Frontiers in Space at UW, and is the founding co-director of the Space Policy and Research Center (SPARC) at UW. She is passionate about contributing to the educational ecosystem for fostering the space sector through bridge-the-gap activities, and is a member of the Washington State Space Coalition (WSSC). She is also a contributor for Forbes on the space industry (https://www.forbes.com/sites/saadiampekkanen/#5897783f7d3f).

Saadia Pekkanen, Professor, University of Washington
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The event is jointly sponsored by the Japan Program at the Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center and the Japan Foundation Center for Global Partnership.
 
 
Since Frey and Osborne showed that 47% of US job would be substituted by AI, the penetration of AI into labor markets has been discussed in every country. In Japan, Benjamin David estimates 55% of jobs will vanish by the introduction of AI. However, these estimates are based only on the technological upper bound. We have to condifer of the economic mechanism behind it, especially the specificity of Japanese labor markets. In this seminar, I will summrize the characteristics of Japanese labor markets from the view point of task distribution, which reflects the technological aspect of them. Then, comparing with US data, I will discuss the role of economic institutions/circumstances and the future direction.
 
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Ryo Kambayashi is a Professor at Institute of Economic Research, Hitotsubashi University in Japan.  His field of research include labor economics, Japanese economy, economic history, and law and economics.  Based on the methodology of standard labor economics, Kambayashi's research interest is centered on the empirical investigations on the economic mechanism of current Japanese labor markets. Through several papers on wage and employment, he has found that the current transition of Japanese labor markets since 1990s has two aspects; that is, the changing part where so called non-standard workers have rapidly increased and the unchanged part where so called Japanese Employment System remains firmly. This disparity in labor markets does not come from the legal assignment surrounding the labor markets but from a spontaneous evolution, just because the Japanese Labor Law has strongly respected the mutual agreement between workers and employer which can officially create exemptions from legal regulations. Then, I am expanding my research agenda into the associations of labor markets with other parts of Japanese economy, such as trade, productivity, self-employment, to understand the whole of Japanese society. I am also gradually expanding the research into historical developments of institutions to find the evidence of spontaneous evolution of labor market institutions, e.g. the network of public employment agency was constructed by absorbing those of private agencies.  Kambayashi holds a PhD, an MA, and a BA in economics, all from University of Tokyo. 
Ryo Kambayashi, Professor, Institute of Economic Research, Hitotsubashi University
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The event is jointly sponsored by the Japan Program at the Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center and the Japan Foundation Center for Global Partnership.

 

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Through previously unexamined data from Japan, Professor Robert Dekle presents results from a preliminary study shoing the impact of robotics on Japanese labor between 1980 and 2012.

Robert Dekle is a Professor at the Department of Economics, University of Southern California. His field of research include international finance, open-economy and development, macroeconomics and the economies of Japan and East Asia.    He obtained his Ph.D in economics at Yale University and B.A in economics at the University of California, Berkeley. 

Robert Dekle, Professor of Economics, University of Southern California
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"Xi Jinping now owns the idea [of the One Belt One Road Initiative]....It has now been written into China’s constitution; its identified with him… If it works, he gets credit; if it doesn't get work out, he’s on the end of the branch, all by himself." - Tom Fingar

On March 13, 2018, APARC Distinguished Fellow Tom Fingar sat down with moderator Markos Kounalakis of the Hoover Instritution for a World Affairs Council sponsored talk.

Fingar spoke before an audience on China's One Belt One Road Initiative, the bariers to its sucess, what it could mean for China, as well as what it could mean for the countries included in China's vision.

The conversation is now avalable online.

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Thomas ingar on World Affairs
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The rise of Nokia as a global ICT leader in the 1990s and early 2000s was dramatic, as a company from the small Nordic country of Finland became a global titan. The lack of Japanese presence in global ICT industries in the 1990s and 2000s was unexpected, as it was a technological and platform leader in its domestic market but without followers in global markets. The advent of the iPhone and Android from Silicon Valley companies in the late 2000s thoroughly disrupted both Nokia and the Japanese companies. What happened? Why did it happen, and what were the lessons learned? Now, with the dominance and concentration of Silicon Valley companies and the rise of China in new areas such as AI and digital services, how do we understand the dynamics of competition unfolding? What general conclusions can we draw about the possibilities and risks of national strategies from  the past experiences?

This panel brings expertise from China, Europe, Japan, and Silicon Valley to discuss these questions. 

This event is brought to you by Shorenstein APARC Japan Program's Stanford Silicon Valley-New Japan Project in collaboration with the Berkeley Roundtable on the International Economy (BRIE)

AGENDA

Moderator and panelistJohn Zysman, Co-founder, Berkeley Roundtable on the International Economy. Author of “The Third Globalization: Can Wealth Countries Stay Rich.”

3:00pm-3:05pm         Introduction & Opening Remarks

3:05pm-3:35pm         The rise and fall of Nokia as a global mobile leader, a management perspective

Presenter: Yves Doz, Solvay Chaired Professor of Technological Innovation, INSEAD. Author of “Ringtone: Exploring the Rise and Fall of Nokia in Mobile Phones” (2018)

3:35pm-4:05pm         How Silicon Valley commoditized the global ICT industry. Japan: leading without followers, then disrupted, a political economy perspective

Presenter: Kenji Kushida, Research Scholar, Stanford University. Author of “The politics of commoditization in global ICT industries: a political economy explanation of the rise of Apple, Google, and industry disruptors” (2015)

4:05pm-4:35pm        AI and Global Dynamic Capabilities: The Implications for China and the United States. 

· The Chinese Case:  Can China avoid the Finnish and Japanese fate?   Will the scale of the Chinese market permit it to develop global standards?   Will the geo-political rivalry change the dynamic of the market rivalries.

· The American case: Will the American platform strengths hold in in the face of Chinese challenges? Will Europe?

PresentersAmy Shuen, Visiting Professor, Hong Kong University (formerly at UC Berkeley, Wharton, CEIBS). Co-author, Dynamic Capabilities and Strategic Management (SMJ, Best Paper Award, 2003) Author, “Web 2.0:  A Strategy Guide” (OReilly, 2008) HKU Talk (2017) https://www.ecom-icom.hku.hk/Contents/Item/Display/1962

John Zysman, Co-founder, Berkeley Roundtable on the International Economy. Author of “The Third Globalization:Can Wealth Countries Stay Rich.”

4:35pm-5:00pm         Open Discussion, Q&A

 

RSVP REQUIRED: http://www.stanford-svnj.org/44-panel-discussion

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"Although peace was the prevailing theme of the opening night at the Pyeongchang Winter Olympics, the air in the VIP box was charged with awkwardness and intimidation," said researchers at the Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center in a recently published article. "The real test for Moon's leadership begins now."

The full article in East Asia Forum is available here.

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2018 PyeongChang Winter Olympic Games Opening Ceremony
flickr.com: Presidential Security Service(eng.pss.go.kr/) Hyoja-dong Studio(open.pss.go.kr/)
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Co-sponsored by the Southeast Asia Program and the Abbasi Program in Islamic Studies

Transnational Islam lacks the centralized leadership and institutions associated with Catholicism. Yet hierarchical and authoritative bodies do make decisions regarding Islam in various contemporary settings, including within the institutional frameworks of states. What happens when Muslim faith and practice are adapted to the terms and procedures of bureaucracy and the modern nation-state?

Dr. Müller will present an original conceptual framework for studying the bureaucratization of Islam. He will apply it to five Southeast Asian cases—Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, and Singapore. State bureaucracies in these countries vary widely,
but generally they aim to influence or control trends and meanings in local Islamic discourse. Drawing on current debates in the anthropology of the state, with particular reference to Brunei and Singapore, Müller will offer an original analytic framework to explain similarities and differences in bureaucratized Islam in Southeast Asia. Possible implications beyond the region will also be explored.

Dominik Müller

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heads the Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology’s Research Group on the Bureaucratization of Islam and Its Socio-Legal Dimensions in Southeast Asia. He is also a non-resident fellow in the Centre for Asian Legal Studies at the National University of Singapore (NUS). Prior positions include visitorships at NUS (2016), the University of Oxford (2015), the University of Brunei Darussalam (2014), and Stanford University (APARC, 2013).  His doctorate in anthropology is from Goethe University Frankfurt (2012).His latest publication is an article on “Hybrid Pathways to Orthodoxy” in Brunei in the April-May 2018 Journal of Current Southeast Asian Affairs, a special issue on bureaucratized Islam that he also guest-edited.

 

Shorenstein APARC
Stanford University
Encina Hall, Room C331
Stanford, CA 94305-6055

(650) 724-5656 (650) 723-6530
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Visiting Scholar
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Dominik Müller joins the Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center (Shorenstein APARC) from February until May 2013 from the Department of Anthropology at Goethe-University Frankfurt where he serves as a postdoctoral research associate.

His research interests encompass Islam and popular culture in contemporary Southeast Asia, Malaysian domestic politics, and socio-legal change in the Malay world.

During his time at the Shorenstein APARC, Müller will conduct research on the religious bureaucracy of Malaysia. His research project at Stanford is funded by the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD).

Müller obtained his PhD summa cum laude in 2012 in cultural anthropology from the Cluster of Excellence the “Formation of Normative Orders” at Frankfurt University. He previously studied anthropology, philosophy, and law in Frankfurt and at Leiden University. His dissertation on Islam, Politics, and Youth in Malaysia received the Frobenius Society’s Research Award 2012 and will be published in 2013.

Visiting Fellow, Islamic Legal Studies Program on Law and Social Change, Harvard University
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