The Flying Geese Paradigm: A critical study of its application to East Asian regional development

It is often claimed that what is popularly known as the "flying geese paradigm" of dynamic comparative advantage has accurately depicted the East Asian catching-up process. This paper presents a critical study of the paradigm, as well as its application to the current situation in East Asia economic hierarchy. The paper first presents the various versions of the paradigm, and discusses similarities and differences among them. It then evaluates the application of the paradigm to the East Asian regional development context by identifying major theoretical, conceptual and empirical problems that come with it. It is the author's hope that the arguments presented in this paper will contribute to the further enrichment of future discussions on the East Asian development experience.Flying geese paradigm; East Asia; Catching-up process; product cycle;

Research on diabatic initialization

The objective was to contribute to the improvement of the analyses of irrotational wind and moisture fields in the trophics through advancement in the technique of initialization by incorporating diabatic effects. Significant accomplishments made during the period May 1990 to April 1991 in the following areas are presented: (1) estimation of the uncertainty of daily synoptic analyses in the tropics; (2) normal modes of Laplace's tidal equations for zonal wavenumber zero; and (3) tropical initialization to ameliorate the spin-up problem of precipitation forecasts. The focus of current research and plans for next year are also presented

Technology Adoption under Relative Factor Price Uncertainty: The Putty-Clay Investment Model

A plant has more flexibility in choosing among different technologies before undertaking an investment than after installing a specific machine. This paper argues that the irreversibility of factor intensity choice may play an important role in explaining the dynamics of investment in the presence of relative factor price uncertainty. A higher degree of irreversibility in the choice of factor intensity---characterized by the ex ante elasticity of substitution between different factors---leads to a larger negative effect of uncertainty in relative factor prices on investment. The empirical implications of the putty-clay investment model are examined using the plant-level Chilean manufacturing data for the period of time-varying exchange rate volatility. The econometric results show that the elasticity of substitution between imported materials and domestic materials is substantially higher at the time of a large investment and suggest that the irreversibility of factor intensity choice may potentially play an important role in explaining the impact of exchange rate volatility on investmentirreversible investment; putty-clay; technology adoption; uncertainty

THE FLYING GEESE PARADIGM: A CRITICAL STUDY OF ITS APPLICATION TO EAST ASIAN REGIONAL DEVELOPMENT

It is often claimed that what is popularly known as the “flying geese paradigm” of dynamic comparative advantage has accurately depicted the East Asian catching-up process. This paper presents a critical study of the paradigm, as well as its application to the current situation in East Asian economic hierarchy. The paper first presents the various versions of the paradigm, and discusses similarities and differences among them. It then evaluates the application of the paradigm to the East Asian regional development context by identifying major theoretical, conceptual and empirical problems that come with it. It is the author’s hope that the arguments presented in this paper will contribute to the further enrichment of future discussions on the East Asian development experience.