Revisiting the Revolving Door: Capital Flight from Southeast Asia

The paper revisits hypothesized direct linkages between external borrowing and capital flight. It reviews the cases of Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines and Thailand to see if such linkages exist. The results indicate that, indeed, large sums of capital flowed in and out of these four countries in a revolving door process. Thus, the results lend support to the need for: better domestic management of external debt, sound macroeconomic management and solid macro-organizational foundations (with the government at the centre of policy making), active management of capital flows, and effective domestic and international involvement and coordination in capital flows.capital flight, external debt, revolving door, Southeast Asia

Subjective Well-Being Approach to the Valuation of International Development: Evidence for the Millennium Development Goals

The subjective well-being approach to the valuation of international development is applied to the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). The rich countries have particular preferences for education, healthcare, and housing; they need compensation for failure to meet the targets by 2015. The poor countries view all the targets as important; they can accept compensation for failure to achieve the targets by 2015, with amounts equivalent to what would have been 0.7% proportion of the incomes of the rich countries for international aid. The MDGs are affordable and doable, yet the rich countries are foot-dragging in fulfilling their pledges for international aid.Subjective well-being; happiness research; Millennium Development Goals; valuation

Subjective Well-Being Approach to Environmental Valuation: Evidence for Greenhouse Gas Emissions

The subjective well-being approach to environmental valuation is applied to analyze the valuation of greenhouse gas emissions. Dimensions like population and income are then incorporated into the valuation to get the fairness-adjusted marginal value of emissions. The results indicate that the industrialized countries have high willingness-to-pay to reduce emissions with the United States and Japan reporting the largest figures. Developing countries differ in their valuations, albeit they are not subject to the mandatory reductions of emissions, but still the results indicate that poor countries like China and India indicate willingness to pay whereas Brazil and Mexico indicate willingness to accept payments to reduce emissions. The high willingness-to-pay indicated by the industrialized countries does not imply that they can pay off the developing countries to continue emitting as usual. However, the different modes of willingness-to-pay and willingness-to-accept of countries indicate possibilities toward the formation of an inter-group payments and transfers system to allow societies to contribute toward global reduction emissions reduction. Part of the payments from the industrial countries could be used to support global programs to change the patterns of production and consumption and accelerate the development of cleaner technologies.Subjective well-being; happiness research; greenhouse gas emissions; environmental valuation

Testing the easterlin paradox: Results and policy implications

The Easterlin Paradox is about the contradiction between an evidence of a short-run relationship between happiness and income growth and no evidence of a long-run relationship between happiness and income growth. The paper argues that there is confirmation of the Easterlin Paradox when the magnitude of the estimated long-run relationship is practically equal to zero notwithstanding its statistical significance. The findings of the paper support the Easterlin Paradox

Capital Flight and Economic Performance

Capital flight aggravates resource constraints and contributes to undermine longterm economic growth. Counterfactual calculations on the Philippines suggest that capital flight contributed to lower the quality of long-term economic growth. Sustained capital flight over three decades means that capital flight had a role for the Philippines to lose the opportunities to achieve economic takeoff. Unless decisive policy actions are taken up to address enduring capital flight and manage the macroeconomy more effectively, the Philippines remains caught in the perpetuity of crises, its economy hollowed-out, the people trapped in poverty, and once again, the country is frustrated from realizing a takeoff

Capital flight from the Philippines, 1970-2002

Capital flight is defined as the movement of capital from resource-scarce developing countries to avoid social controls. It is measured as net unrecorded capital outflow, or the residual between officially recorded uses and sources of funds. Total capital flight from the Philippines was estimated at USD 138 billion (in 1995 constant prices) for the period 1970-2002. Including imputed interest earnings, the stock of capital flight as of 2002 was USD 218 billion. Indeed, by any yardstick, these figures are significant amounts of lost resources that could have been utilized to generate additional output and jobs in the country. Were it not for capital flight, the Philippines would have reached an economic performance like the Asian economic tigers

Income and Happiness: a Commentary

The paper discusses five items pertinent to Palanca-Tan (2021) – namely, Easterlin paradox, Easterlin hypothesis, happiness-income model, happiness survey question, and happy poor. The goal is to offer clarification and to help enrich the understanding of readers of Palanca-Tan

Capital Flight and Economic Performance: Growth Projections for the Philippines

Capital flight aggravates resource constraints and contributes to undermine longterm economic growth. Counterfactual calculations on the Philippines suggest that capital flight contributed to lower the quality of long-term economic growth. Sustained capital flight over three decades means that capital flight had a role for the Philippines to lose the opportunities to achieve economic takeoff. Unless decisive policy actions are taken up to address enduring capital flight and manage the macroeconomy more effectively, the Philippines remains caught in the perpetuity of crises, its economy hollowed-out, the people trapped in poverty, and once again, the country is frustrated from realizing a takeoff

Subjective Well-Being Approach to the Valuation of International Development: Evidence for the Millennium Development Goals

The subjective well-being approach to the valuation of international development is applied to the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). The rich countries have particular preferences for education, healthcare, and housing; they need compensation for failure to meet the targets by 2015. The poor countries view all the targets as important; they can accept compensation for failure to achieve the targets by 2015, with amounts equivalent to what would have been 0.7% proportion of the incomes of the rich countries for international aid. The MDGs are affordable and doable, yet the rich countries are foot-dragging in fulfilling their pledges for international aid