Regional Economic Integration and its Impacts on Growth, Income Distribution and Poverty Reduction in East Asia: An Ecnometric Analysis based on CGE Modeling

点击翻译按钮获取中文摘要

We started the first year (2004) of three-year project by implementing a pilot study of CGE world model with focus on Vietnam and almost completed the case study of Vietnam at the end of the year. We attempted also to collect micro household data for Vietnam, China and Thailand, to build data base for world model, and to implement theoretical and empirical studies to supplement the modeling analysis. In the second year (2005), we continued similar research and studies, adding Indonesia and almost completed the case studies of China and Thailand. In the first half of the final year (2006), we almost completed the case study of Indonesia and finalized the whole content of the project.At the end of the three-year project, we had an international workshop on January 28-29, 2007 at the Graduate School of International Development, Nagoya University, in order to integrate and summarize all of the research works done for the project during the past 3 years. The workshop resulted in the final … More project report consisting mainly of the papers presented: 4 case studies of Vietnam, China, Thailand and Indonesia on regional integration and growth, poverty and income distribution in East Asia, 1 summary paper for the whole region, and 6 other related papers, totaling 11 in number. The final project report includes 3 published paper in the past in addition to the above 11 papers presented at the workshop. We had 5 participants to the workshop from China, 2 from Vietnam, 1 from Thailand, and 2 from Indonesia in addition to 5 from the Japanese side.The impact analysis based on the world CGE model indicates that the East Asian FTAs (Free Trade Agreements) or the East Asian Economic Community generally have positive effects on growth, improve income distribution, and result in poverty reduction, though the impacts on China are a little bit exceptional. The results indicate positive potential or long-run positive effects of the East Asian Economic Community, but its requirement of structural adjustment is the actual problem to be overcome in the short-run. This is the general implication, but the impacts of FTA on growth, distribution and poverty differ in sign and magnitude, depending on countries and the types of FTA, so that concrete and specific analysis and evaluation are needed for individual cases. The next research to be continued from this project is to do dynamic CGE analysis on the impacts of FTAs in East Asia, giving future prospects of the countries and the region as a whole. Less