Description

The unit examines and compares business environments in a number of key countries in North-East and South-East Asia. It looks at the increasing influences of globalisation, different types of business organisation, government-business relationships and labour issues. A major focus will be on how the different institutional environments affect government capacity to carry out effective economic management.

Overview

The aim of this Unit is to introduce students to the economic, social and business systems of the Asian economies.  By the end of the semester, you will know the fundamentals of the economy, society, and culture, of key, representative parts of the Asian region.  You can never learn everything there is to know about the Asian economies, and in a single University course you can barely begin.  But the knowledge gained in this course will make it easier to learn later on, in other university subjects and in your subsequent career.  You will know the major periods of East and South East Asian history, and an explanation of why they are important (not necessarily the explanation, but you can compare it with others you hear later on, and learn a great deal in the process).  You will have a usable explanation and understanding of the economic crisis that recently afflicted or is threatening many Asian economies.  You will be presented with a model of the origins of Asian economic success (again, not necessarily the definitive model, but a useful starting point).  You will be given hands-on knowledge, as much as possible from experienced practitioners, of current Asian business practice; receive a glimpse of social and cultural institutions and trends; and begin to develop the store of information necessary for mapping out future trends.  By the end of the semester, you should have the basic facts and concepts necessary to enter into, understand, and learn from, any and all of the literature on Asian business.

In the first half of the Semester, we will focus on a single economy.  You will be given a model to explain the origins of its economic success, and you will then learn its key business institutions and characteristics.  In 2006 the economy under focus was Japan, beginning with the Tokugawa Period.  Students learnt the possible explanations of Japan’s economic success in the Tokugawa and Meiji periods.  We then moved to the Post-WWII Miracle Period, the period of apparent supremacy and rising trade friction in the 1980s, the Heisei Recession of the 1990s, and the current (apparent) recovery.  Special attention was paid to the key economic institutions of Japanese business, including the sogo shosha, the financial and capital keiretsu, and the role of government.  The Japanese experience was then contrasted with the rise of the Chinese economy and of South Korea, and again the focus was on the origins and patterns of growth, and on the key economic institutions such as the SOE’s and TVE’s (State Owned and Town and Village Enterprises). 

In 2007 the starting point will be the economy of the People’s Republic of China, which will be used, as was Japan in 2006, as a reference point for analysis and comparison of the other economies of the region.   In 2008 the initial model will be provided by the Republic of Korea.  In this fashion the Unit alternates between the major economies of the region as our starting point, but we will move on to cover all of them.

A few more points:

Few areas are as prone to myth-making as is the study of the Asian economies.  This subject will adopt a skeptical approach.  We will argue that most of the truisms about Asia are at least questionable, or are simply in error, and this Unit you will at least encounter alternative points of view.

In doing so, we will have to be selective: as noted above, 40 hours of class contact does not allow both breadth and depth; the one will tend to obviate the other.  We will need to concentrate on a certain number of economies and a certain spectrum of issues.  However, by this means we will be able to provide a model or method of approach which will allow further independent learning, both in your other university studies, and afterwards, about the places and issues we miss.

Finally, this is a subject offered as part of the BBA program by the Department of Economics.  It is an Applied Economics subject; theoretical models will be used here, rather than taught in full.  Having said this, there are certain Economic concepts that are essential, and that you are unlikely to have encountered elsewhere.  Where such concepts are necessary, you will be taught them in class; while there are prerequisite subjects for taking this Unit, there will be no assumed knowledge as such, and you can rely on being taught the concepts, in particular the Economic theory, that you need for its completion.

Note that students completing a Bachelor of Commerce or Bachelor of Economics degree are also eligible to enrol in this unit, as it is a designated Commerce/Economics unit in the Schedule of Units. However, an application for Special Approval will need to be submitted to the Economics Department before enrolment can be completed.