Hi everyone,
A couple of announcements:
(1) As we agreed last week, we won't be meeting like our regular discussion sessions this week. I tried to cover all the readings for the finals last week in lieu of this meeting. Instead, if you have any questions, please come to the Geography Department Graduate Lounge from 1pm-3pm, where I will conduct one-on-one tutorial hours. Please post here for an appointment.
(2) I'm sorry for those who haven't received their term papers. Well, you must have missed the discussion sessions if you haven't claimed them. I was supposed to bring them to the Geography Department tomorrow, however, due to colds and flu, I wasnt able to. I'll bring all the midterms and term papers tomorrow and put them all in an envelope.
(3) For your final exams this Friday, take note of the following:
a. Come early
b. No electronic dictionaries are allowed.
c. Write my name (LAWRENCE SANTIAGO) on your exam papers.
d. Give your exam papers to me after you're done.
e. Exit after the exam through the back door of Room 200.
(4) Prepare well and goodluck to your final exams!
Best, Lawrence
Monday, April 7, 2008
Wednesday, March 26, 2008
The Asian Financial Crisis Revisited: 1997-2007
Hi everyone,
Here's the link to the lecture you've listened to today:
http://www.frbsf.org/banking/asiasource/events/afcseries.html
Here's a text version with some comments of other people:
http://economistsview.typepad.com/economistsview/2007/02/janet_yellen_th.html
Please see the blog tomorrow for the list of discussants and respondents for the remaining two weeks. I shall also send emails to you about your roles so that I can provide fair participation marks for everyone.
Cheers, Lawrence
Here's the link to the lecture you've listened to today:
http://www.frbsf.org/banking/asiasource/events/afcseries.html
Here's a text version with some comments of other people:
http://economistsview.typepad.com/economistsview/2007/02/janet_yellen_th.html
Please see the blog tomorrow for the list of discussants and respondents for the remaining two weeks. I shall also send emails to you about your roles so that I can provide fair participation marks for everyone.
Cheers, Lawrence
Sunday, March 9, 2008
DISCUSSANTS THIS WEEK (March 12, 2008)
Changes in Discussion Flow
A query was sent to my via email (by Ayuuka) whether we'll move the discussants from next week to this week. My suggestion is for the discussants and respondents from both weeks to divide the labor. So this week, here's the list of Discussants and Respondents:
L26
Singapore Article
D: BEN MASON
R: MASAHIRO ABE
Indonesia Article
D: AYANA FUKUYA
R: MAI KANAMORI
L28
Singaore Article
D: SHO HUSHIMOTO
R: AKIKO TAKAHASHI
Indonesia Article
D: YUUKA SEKO
R: SHEKO KUSUDA
I hope you're reading this blog announcement. Otherwise, our discussion this Wednesday might end up really chaotic. Again, goodluck on your essays!
A query was sent to my via email (by Ayuuka) whether we'll move the discussants from next week to this week. My suggestion is for the discussants and respondents from both weeks to divide the labor. So this week, here's the list of Discussants and Respondents:
L26
Singapore Article
D: BEN MASON
R: MASAHIRO ABE
Indonesia Article
D: AYANA FUKUYA
R: MAI KANAMORI
L28
Singaore Article
D: SHO HUSHIMOTO
R: AKIKO TAKAHASHI
Indonesia Article
D: YUUKA SEKO
R: SHEKO KUSUDA
I hope you're reading this blog announcement. Otherwise, our discussion this Wednesday might end up really chaotic. Again, goodluck on your essays!
Pacific Worlds in Motion Conference
An Interdisciplinary Conference on Asian Migrations
March 14-15, 2008
Green College/St. John's College, University of British Columbia
March 14-15, 2008
Green College/St. John's College, University of British Columbia
Thursday, March 6, 2008
How to write a Discussion Essay and Some Announcements
Hi all, as promised, I would post some of the links I used in our session this week on "how to write a discussion essay." Here they are:
(1) From Youtube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BrdSCPXJhkA&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9yGYmI0TQsY&feature=related
(2) From Various Websites:
http://www1.aucegypt.edu/academic/writers/
As per the format of your paper, please follow these rules:
(1) Use size 12 Garamond font, 1X1X1X1 margins, and double spaced
(2) Use the following website on how to use references MLA (Modern Language Association) style:
http://www1.aucegypt.edu/academic/writers/MLA_style.htm
If you havent claimed your midterm exams, they are at the Geographic Information Centre at the Geog Dept.
Remember that we will be discussing the Singapore and Indonesia articles next week.
Again, if you can, ask your ESL teachers to check the grammar of your essays if you have problems with it. Also, ask one of your Canadian friends to proofread (review) them for you before handing them in.
FINALLY, PLEASE COME TO OUR DISCUSSION CLASS NEXT WEDNESDAY, March 12, because I will make a special announcement!
See you all and post something here if you have any questions. Goodluck on your essays!
(1) From Youtube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BrdSCPXJhkA&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9yGYmI0TQsY&feature=related
(2) From Various Websites:
http://www1.aucegypt.edu/academic/writers/
As per the format of your paper, please follow these rules:
(1) Use size 12 Garamond font, 1X1X1X1 margins, and double spaced
(2) Use the following website on how to use references MLA (Modern Language Association) style:
http://www1.aucegypt.edu/academic/writers/MLA_style.htm
If you havent claimed your midterm exams, they are at the Geographic Information Centre at the Geog Dept.
Remember that we will be discussing the Singapore and Indonesia articles next week.
Again, if you can, ask your ESL teachers to check the grammar of your essays if you have problems with it. Also, ask one of your Canadian friends to proofread (review) them for you before handing them in.
FINALLY, PLEASE COME TO OUR DISCUSSION CLASS NEXT WEDNESDAY, March 12, because I will make a special announcement!
See you all and post something here if you have any questions. Goodluck on your essays!
DISCUSSION MATERIALS for March 12
GEOG281/ASTU 202. DISCUSSION GROUP: CONTEMPORARY ISSUES IN SOUTHEAST ASIA (Week of 3-7 March, 2008)
Articles by M. Perry et al., and S.A. Royle
1. Introduction
The purpose of the week’s discussion is to build upon the lectures on Southeast Asian countries, and to reveal aspects of their economic and social development since becoming independent nations in the 1940s and 1950s. .
2. Singapore’s Population
The reading by Martin Perry (who used to be a geographer at the National University of Singapore) and his co-authors touches upon fertility rates (defined as the number of new babies per thousand of women of child-bearing age) in Singapore, also changes in family size, as well as the Singapore government’s population and family planning policies.
The reading also illustrates the fact that the Singapore government has taken a much larger role in social planning than other nations of Southeast Asia. This intervention has included large-scale housing programs and education programs, and also family planning programs – which have been more controversial. For instance, does a government have a right to determine an individual family’s size? From the government’s perspective, Singapore is a small island and so cannot support a large population on the grounds of sustainability (the present population is around 3 million) (see page 87 of the reading). The government’s family planning program since independence has included a propaganda campaign (`stop at two’, page 87), legal abortion and voluntary sterilization, as well as other policy `carrots’ and `sticks’, including preferential housing for small families. This anti-natalist (i.e. reducing the family size) policy approach changed somewhat in the 1980s as the government persuaded high-educated women to have families, in order to sustain the `genetic pool of talented women’ (page 89).
From the mid-1980s onwards, in line with economic programs to turn Singapore away from low-technology manufacturing to high-tech and sophisticated services (e.g. finance, and regional business headquaters of the MNCs), the government began to think of how to increase in particular the `talented’ part of the domestic workforce, as well as recruit factory workers for new industries from nearby Malaysia on temporary visas. One controversial program was that it introduced special incentives for university educated young people to meet each other and become married and start a family (page 91-2).
The final topic covered by Martin Perry in this article covers the rapid ageing of the Singapore population (page 95ff). Compared with surrounding ASEAN countries - Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia and the Philippines - three decades of family planning propaganda have left their mark, and the average age of this small nation is growing older all the time. This is also of concern to the government, as taking care of the aged is much more costly than taking chare of children (e.g. hospital expenditures, and state pensions. Note that the term used in the reading - `CPF’- refers to the state pension fund [compulsory pension fund]. As with other parts of Asia, the government intends that families should take much of the financial burden rather than the state in this case.
Overall, the article illustrates the fact that the quality of government policy is important in contributing to long-term sustained development. Perhaps this supports the ideas of W.W. Rostow on how countries move through different stages of development through their own resources and programs.
Questions
1. Q. Why has the issues of population planning been so critical in Singapore’s case?
2. Q. Why is there a link between Singapore’s economic development and its population planning programs?
3. Q. Would such heavy-handed approach to population planning be accepted here in Canada? Has Canada any official population program? What about Canada’s immigration policies?
3. Industrialization in Indonesia.
This reading by Stephen Royle, is rather descriptive, but it illustrates the opportunities yet pitfalls of relying on direct foreign investment from MNCs (TNCs) as a way to industrialize. Prof. Edgington touched on the general theory of `dependency’ (by Gunder Frank) during class last week and contrasted it with Rostow’s stages of economic development theory, and I have mentioned the `new industrial division of labour’, or NIDL (page 89) in previous parts of the course.
Pages 90-92 describe the dramatic increase in TNC manufacturing investment in Indonesia in the 1990s and the overall impact this is having on shifting the country from agriculture to manufacturing. Batam island is just across the water from Singapore and has attracted a wide array of MNC investments in manufacturing oriented to export markets, from companies based in Singapore (mainly foreign firms) as well as directly from Japan, Europe and North America. The advantages of locating in Batam for the MNCs are cheap land and labour, as well as access to the financial and commercial infrastructure of nearby Singapore (page 94).
This new way of investment has transformed the island, with modern factory estates and other infrastructure. One problem for local economic development in Batam, however, is that most of the profits flew back to the MNC’s headquaters, and local wages have remained very low. In addition, there have been very few MNC expenditures that support the local economy, e.g. purchases made by foreign companies in local shops or using local firms. Moreover, as many young women are recruited from off the island and employed in the factories in the new industrial estates; they themselves bear a particular social hardship associated with living and working away from their homes. Indeed, due to the expansion plans which are being put in place in Batam, it is likely that `local’ inhabitants will be soon outnumbered by `non-local’ factory workers (page 97). The author concludes that the rapid industrialization in Batam has brought both positive and negative outcomes. (Note that this article was written before the 1997 Asian financial crisis, which had dramatic and negative effects on the rates of investment in Indonesia, due to the political uncertainties and changed the political regime in Indonesia in 1998-9).
Questions for Students.
1. Q. How does the Batam island model of development illustrate the `dependency theory of development’ that I talked about in class?
2. Q. Does Canada or Japan invite MNCs to produce in their respective countries?
Articles by M. Perry et al., and S.A. Royle
1. Introduction
The purpose of the week’s discussion is to build upon the lectures on Southeast Asian countries, and to reveal aspects of their economic and social development since becoming independent nations in the 1940s and 1950s. .
2. Singapore’s Population
The reading by Martin Perry (who used to be a geographer at the National University of Singapore) and his co-authors touches upon fertility rates (defined as the number of new babies per thousand of women of child-bearing age) in Singapore, also changes in family size, as well as the Singapore government’s population and family planning policies.
The reading also illustrates the fact that the Singapore government has taken a much larger role in social planning than other nations of Southeast Asia. This intervention has included large-scale housing programs and education programs, and also family planning programs – which have been more controversial. For instance, does a government have a right to determine an individual family’s size? From the government’s perspective, Singapore is a small island and so cannot support a large population on the grounds of sustainability (the present population is around 3 million) (see page 87 of the reading). The government’s family planning program since independence has included a propaganda campaign (`stop at two’, page 87), legal abortion and voluntary sterilization, as well as other policy `carrots’ and `sticks’, including preferential housing for small families. This anti-natalist (i.e. reducing the family size) policy approach changed somewhat in the 1980s as the government persuaded high-educated women to have families, in order to sustain the `genetic pool of talented women’ (page 89).
From the mid-1980s onwards, in line with economic programs to turn Singapore away from low-technology manufacturing to high-tech and sophisticated services (e.g. finance, and regional business headquaters of the MNCs), the government began to think of how to increase in particular the `talented’ part of the domestic workforce, as well as recruit factory workers for new industries from nearby Malaysia on temporary visas. One controversial program was that it introduced special incentives for university educated young people to meet each other and become married and start a family (page 91-2).
The final topic covered by Martin Perry in this article covers the rapid ageing of the Singapore population (page 95ff). Compared with surrounding ASEAN countries - Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia and the Philippines - three decades of family planning propaganda have left their mark, and the average age of this small nation is growing older all the time. This is also of concern to the government, as taking care of the aged is much more costly than taking chare of children (e.g. hospital expenditures, and state pensions. Note that the term used in the reading - `CPF’- refers to the state pension fund [compulsory pension fund]. As with other parts of Asia, the government intends that families should take much of the financial burden rather than the state in this case.
Overall, the article illustrates the fact that the quality of government policy is important in contributing to long-term sustained development. Perhaps this supports the ideas of W.W. Rostow on how countries move through different stages of development through their own resources and programs.
Questions
1. Q. Why has the issues of population planning been so critical in Singapore’s case?
2. Q. Why is there a link between Singapore’s economic development and its population planning programs?
3. Q. Would such heavy-handed approach to population planning be accepted here in Canada? Has Canada any official population program? What about Canada’s immigration policies?
3. Industrialization in Indonesia.
This reading by Stephen Royle, is rather descriptive, but it illustrates the opportunities yet pitfalls of relying on direct foreign investment from MNCs (TNCs) as a way to industrialize. Prof. Edgington touched on the general theory of `dependency’ (by Gunder Frank) during class last week and contrasted it with Rostow’s stages of economic development theory, and I have mentioned the `new industrial division of labour’, or NIDL (page 89) in previous parts of the course.
Pages 90-92 describe the dramatic increase in TNC manufacturing investment in Indonesia in the 1990s and the overall impact this is having on shifting the country from agriculture to manufacturing. Batam island is just across the water from Singapore and has attracted a wide array of MNC investments in manufacturing oriented to export markets, from companies based in Singapore (mainly foreign firms) as well as directly from Japan, Europe and North America. The advantages of locating in Batam for the MNCs are cheap land and labour, as well as access to the financial and commercial infrastructure of nearby Singapore (page 94).
This new way of investment has transformed the island, with modern factory estates and other infrastructure. One problem for local economic development in Batam, however, is that most of the profits flew back to the MNC’s headquaters, and local wages have remained very low. In addition, there have been very few MNC expenditures that support the local economy, e.g. purchases made by foreign companies in local shops or using local firms. Moreover, as many young women are recruited from off the island and employed in the factories in the new industrial estates; they themselves bear a particular social hardship associated with living and working away from their homes. Indeed, due to the expansion plans which are being put in place in Batam, it is likely that `local’ inhabitants will be soon outnumbered by `non-local’ factory workers (page 97). The author concludes that the rapid industrialization in Batam has brought both positive and negative outcomes. (Note that this article was written before the 1997 Asian financial crisis, which had dramatic and negative effects on the rates of investment in Indonesia, due to the political uncertainties and changed the political regime in Indonesia in 1998-9).
Questions for Students.
1. Q. How does the Batam island model of development illustrate the `dependency theory of development’ that I talked about in class?
2. Q. Does Canada or Japan invite MNCs to produce in their respective countries?
Thursday, February 14, 2008
Prof. Nakamura's Notes
Professor Nakamura provided the following notes for thisweek's reading by K. Morioka (1991) “Structural Change of Japanese Capitalism”, International Journal of Political Economy, 21-31. Please check your WebCT account for copies of his class notes...Again, good luck with all your exam preparations! See you all after the Spring Break!
The paper makes the following points.
1. Japan depends on good international relations with the USA as it depends on exporting products to the USA and also importing USA technology. Japan also depends on military security from the USA.
2. Japan's economic profile changed after 1973 due to the `oil shocks' of 1973 and 1979. The economy changed even more dramatically due to the Hotel Plaza Accord of 1985 which raised the value of the yen and so cut export competitiveness for a range of mass production industries. After this, the economy focused more on technology products, including factory automation.
Government expenditure shifted from industrial export support to domestic social infrastructure (e.g. especially city infrastructure such as sewers and roads, and parks). This was done encourage domestic demand rather than exports as the motor of the economy.
Downsizing of government activities took place in the 1980s through privatisation of public sector companies, such as the national railway and telecommunications areas. In the private sector, large companies emphasized cost-cutting through using sub-contractors and moving their surplus labor to subsidiary companies where wages were lower.
3. The author characterizes the Japanese labor market as rather unique due to the amount of unpaid work expected (especially from white-collar workers) also the role of women and part-time workers.
The author in the paper does not refer to another important shift after 1985, mainly a change to a `horizontal' international division of labor (whereby Japan now imports manufactured products from Asia) rather than the more traditional `vertical' international division of labor (i.e. importing only raw materials). Yet another change that happened after 1985 was the increase in foreign labor to fill the gap caused by the high economic growth and demand for factory and service employment in the late-1980s `bubble economy'.
The paper makes the following points.
1. Japan depends on good international relations with the USA as it depends on exporting products to the USA and also importing USA technology. Japan also depends on military security from the USA.
2. Japan's economic profile changed after 1973 due to the `oil shocks' of 1973 and 1979. The economy changed even more dramatically due to the Hotel Plaza Accord of 1985 which raised the value of the yen and so cut export competitiveness for a range of mass production industries. After this, the economy focused more on technology products, including factory automation.
Government expenditure shifted from industrial export support to domestic social infrastructure (e.g. especially city infrastructure such as sewers and roads, and parks). This was done encourage domestic demand rather than exports as the motor of the economy.
Downsizing of government activities took place in the 1980s through privatisation of public sector companies, such as the national railway and telecommunications areas. In the private sector, large companies emphasized cost-cutting through using sub-contractors and moving their surplus labor to subsidiary companies where wages were lower.
3. The author characterizes the Japanese labor market as rather unique due to the amount of unpaid work expected (especially from white-collar workers) also the role of women and part-time workers.
The author in the paper does not refer to another important shift after 1985, mainly a change to a `horizontal' international division of labor (whereby Japan now imports manufactured products from Asia) rather than the more traditional `vertical' international division of labor (i.e. importing only raw materials). Yet another change that happened after 1985 was the increase in foreign labor to fill the gap caused by the high economic growth and demand for factory and service employment in the late-1980s `bubble economy'.
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