Convergence Behaviour of Growth Triangle: The Case of IMT-GT

Regional disparities and their evolution displayed a vital economic as well as political issue for most regions or countries (Blizkovsky, 2012). Due to realizing this shocking fact, it has drawn a lot of attention from all over the world to tackle this issue in order to avoid its adverse implication towards holistic economic development. The beauty of Indonesia-Malaysia-Thailand Growth Triangle (IMT-GT) is that it aims to increase the trade and investment among the three regions as it pursues private sector-led economic growth. However, evidence shows that the progress of development in this sub-region is either stagnant or slow. Hence, the aim of this study is to investigate the convergence hypothesis of the participating states and determine the reason behind each of the convergence behaviour portrayed. Non-linear time varying factor model namely Phillip and Sul has been employed in this study. The result implies that Negeri Sembilan is the only diverging group while the rest is converging. This phenomenon indicates that most of the states and provinces in this sub-region have positive performance towards the economic growth. Effective development planning can be done by policy makers after determining the performance of each of the states and provinces

Flying Geese of Japan: Asian Electronic Industry

Although Japan is known as the largest electronics goods manufacturer, many Japanese companies are facing high cost production due to limited resources. Some Asian countries have been proven to surpass Japan due to their low cost production and cheaper labour. This study analyse the development of Asian leading electronic industries and validity Japan as the flying geese in Asian electronic industries. The empirical result shows that all Asian countries are divergence except Italy, India, United Kingdom and Indonesia. The study suggest that each of the Asian convergence countries should cooperate, give their obligation and commitment to track in the same direction of economic structure, political will and the income distribution of a country. This action could promote economic integration between Asian countries as a whole