On the heels of the catastrophic 1997 Asian Financial Crisis, the East Asian nations have surprised observers by again becoming the world’s economic powerhouses. Their economic successes are striking in poverty alleviation and in contribution to world economic growth. When the rest of the world economy temporarily slowed, East and Southeast Asia provided a stabilizing force in world business cycles. Indeed, in these last 30 years the economic success of the east has pulled the world’s economic centre of gravity almost 5,000km—three quarters of the earth’s radius—eastwards.
Adding to this, the 2008 Global Financial Crisis has challenged some of the most important ideas in global economic policy-making: the economic advantage to state minimalism; the success of free markets; the role of the financial sector in modern economies; the proper conduct of monetary policy. The European Union and the US continue to see serious economic setback. Will the great shift east continue? What challenge does this pose to conventional models of success in economics?
This course looks at critical questions for the global economy today: Did the shift of the global economy east cause the global financial crisis? Did globalization and the debunked myth of decoupling mean economies the entire world over would suffer from financial crisis in the developed economies? With reliance on export-oriented growth in emerging economies, wouldn’t a slowdown in the rich economies propagate worldwide? How did the global financial crisis become the Eurozone crisis?
Is Asia's current growth path sustainable? What role has the rise of China played in driving economic growth throughout East and Southeast Asia? How have patterns of trade changed with globalization? How will the different groups of economies engage with one another, in trade, in collaboration on global problems, and in competition with one another?
Full course outline |[PDF]
About the instructor
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Professor Danny Quah is Professor of Economics at LSE, Senior Fellow at LSE IDEAS|, Senior Research Associate at the Centre for the Study of Human Rights|, and Chair of the Board of the LSE-PKU Summer School Board. He is also Tan Chin Tuan Visiting Professor in the Economics Department at the National University of Singapore and Visiting Professor of Economics at Tsinghua University, Beijing.
From 2009-2011 he served as Council Member on Malaysia's National Economic Advisory Council. He is a member of the World Economic Forum Global Agenda Council on Economic Imbalances, and serves on the Editorial Boards of East Asian Policy, Journal of Economic Growth, and Global Policy, and on the Advisory Board of OMFIF Education.
For further information, please see Professor Quah's LSE Experts |Profile or his Department of Economics |website.
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