...Research Paper in Econ 112 (A) Prepared by: INTONG, Bryan O. CHIONG, Leo Anthony A. AGIAS, Juville Bryan RAMOS, Marie Christalene A. Submitted to: Henry A. Paňales Moderator April 26, 2014 I. Introduction A. MALAYSIA Malaysia’s economic freedom score is 69.6, making its economy the 37th freest in the 2014 Index. Its score is 3.5 points higher than last year, with impressive improvements in seven of the 10 economic freedoms including financial freedom, investment freedom, labor freedom, and business freedom. Malaysia is ranked 9th out of 42 countries in the Asia–Pacific region, and its overall score is above the world and regional averages. Over the 20-year history of the Index, Malaysia’s economic freedom score has declined by 2.3 points. Declines have been recorded in five of the 10 economic freedoms, including property rights, freedom from corruption, and investment freedom. Most notably, freedom from corruption has declined by over 25 points, undermining the rule of law. Over the past two decades, Malaysia’s economy has mostly been rated “moderately free.” Registering one of the 10 best score improvements in the 2014 Index, Malaysia has charted an upward trajectory of economic freedom for the past five years. It has undertaken wide-ranging reforms to address various structural weaknesses and improve competitiveness. Recent reforms have put greater emphasis on improving regulatory efficiency, enhancing regional competitiveness, and modernizing the financial...
Words: 3116 - Pages: 13
...impressive economic growth since overcoming the Asian financial crisis of the late 1990s. The country’s gross national income per capita has steadily risen, from $560 in the year 2000 to $3,630 in 2014. Today, Indonesia is the world’s fourth most populous nation, the world’s 10th largest economy in terms of purchasing power parity, and a member of the G-20. It has made enormous gains in poverty reduction, cutting the poverty rate to more than half since 1999, to 11.2% in 2015. Indonesia’s economic planning follows a 20-year development plan, spanning from 2005 to 2025. It is segmented into 5-year medium-term plans, called the RPJMN, each with different development priorities. The current medium-term development plan – the third phase of the long-term plan -- runs from 2015 to 2020, focusing, among others, on infrastructure development and improving social assistance programs in education and healthcare. Such shifts in public spending has been enabled by a reform of long-standing energy subsidies, allowing for more investments in programs that directly impact the poor and near-poor, as well as vast improvements in infrastructure investment. Considerable challenges remain in achieving Indonesia’s goals. Due to weaker demand for commodities – the fuel for Indonesia’s economic boom in the past decade – Indonesia’s GDP growth has been slowing since 2012. The pace of growth in fixed investment, exports, and consumption, has slowed – and these developments have impacted the rate of poverty...
Words: 3524 - Pages: 15
...leader of after-tax middle-class income country among all the developed states, but now the other countries, such as Canada, has more income of middle-class citizen than America has. Although the United States economy growth is strong in the world, only a small number of top-class families can benefit from it. In other words, most of American families did not reach the average income level among the advanced countries. This article claims three primary factors that drive the income grow slowly in the United States: slowly education attachment, unequally distribution in companies, and unaggressive government policies. Increasing income will push aggregate demand, and then will improve aggregate output as well as Gross Domestic Products. As Kathy, an ordinary salariat in this article, said, “people need to start in between to work their way up.” In macroeconomic topic, we also learned that income taxes are an important part of government aggregate expenditure. When GDP rises quickly, the tax increases and this will decrease disposable income, but that is not fare to most of families in America, because most of citizens cannot catch up the fast growing economy, and this policy would cause citizens’ discontent of government. THEORY REVIEW...
Words: 1427 - Pages: 6
...Inequality and Growth in a Panel of Countries* Robert J. Barro, Harvard University June 1999 Abstract Evidence from a broad panel of countries shows little overall relation between income inequality and rates of growth and investment. However, for growth, higher inequality tends to retard growth in poor countries and encourage growth in richer places. The Kuznets curve—whereby inequality first increases and later decreases during the process of economic development—emerges as a clear empirical regularity. However, this relation does not explain the bulk of variations in inequality across countries or over time. *This research has been supported by a grant from the National Science Foundation. An earlier version of this paper was presented at a conference at the American Enterprise Institute. I am grateful for excellent research assistance from Silvana Tenreyro and for comments from Paul Collier, Bill Easterly, Jong-Wha Lee, Mattias Lundberg, Francisco Rodriguez, Heng-fu Zou, and participants of a seminar at the World Bank. 2 A substantial literature analyzes the effects of income inequality on macroeconomic performance, as reflected in rates of economic growth and investment. Much of this analysis is empirical, using data on the performance of a broad group of countries. This paper contributes to this literature by using a framework for the determinants of economic growth that I have developed and used in previous studies. To motivate the extension of this...
Words: 12359 - Pages: 50
...Table of Contents Executive Summary 1.0 Introduction Page 1 1.1 Company Profile Page 2 1.2 Product Profile Page 2 1.3 Company’s Aim and Vision Page 2 1.4 Scope of the Analysis Page 2 2.0 Geographic Location Page 3 3.0 Demographic Analysis Page 3 4.0 Economic Analysis Page 3 4.1 Macroeconomic Analysis Page 4 4.1.1 GDP and GDP Growth Page 4 4.1.2 GDP per capita and GDP per capita PPP Page 5 4.1.3 Income Distribution Page 5 4.1.4 Major Exports and Imports Page 5 4.2 Business Environment Page 6 4.2.1 East of Doing Business Page 6 4.2.2 Economic Freedom Page 7 4.2.3 Perceived Corruption Page 7 4.2.4 Tariffs and Trade Agreements Page 7 4.2.5 Competitive Analysis Page 8 4.3 Per Capita Spending Page 9 4.4 Technological and Physical Infrastructure Page 9 4.4.1 Transport Infrastructure Page 10 4.4.2 Physical Infrastructure Page 10 5.0 Social Characteristics and Market Potential Page 11 6.0 Political and Legal Environment Page 11 6.1 Political Risk Page 11 6.2 Legal Risk Page 11 7.0 Trade and Diplomatic Relations with Australia Page 12 8.0 Country of Choice Page 12 9.0 Mode of Entry Page 12 10.0 Conclusion Page 13 References Page 14 Executive Summary This report examines and assesses the market suitability of two countries for the company Octahedron’s SWIM software....
Words: 4387 - Pages: 18
...lcavusoglu1@student.gsu.edu 1. GDP per capita as an indicator: What are the limitations of this statistic in the context of emerging markets? GDP per capita is often used as an approximation of a country's prosperity. However, this approximation excludes significant factors such as the distribution of income, home production, underground economy, and social cost of production, in making a decision on the well-being of a country's inhabitants. First, emerging markets generally have an unbalanced distribution of income. There may be significant gaps in income between various groups of the society. In such markets, GDP per capita is a misleading indicator of the economic situation because a wealthy minority may hold a large share of GDP. GDP per capita might underestimate the fraction of society who has an income below the poverty threshold. Furthermore, the inequality in income distribution gives rise to a higher rate of increase in underground economy, which may make up a large fraction of GDP generated in a country. Consequently, many places have a higher GDP than what is reported. Second, there is a large domestic production in developing countries such as Turkey, which is not calculated in GDP since these products are not sold on the market. Homegrown vegetables and knit clothing are examples of such domestic products. Last, the social cost of production such as environmental pollution and depreciation of natural resources should be deducted from the calculated GDP. China was the world’s...
Words: 2290 - Pages: 10
...development help analyzing cause and effect of phenomena identify urgent action 3. Economic growth is not a sufficient condition of development, because a) it does not help poverty reduction b) a country must also have an educated workforce c) there are several other aspects of development 4. a) b) c) Economic growth is pivotal, because it is easier to achieve than the other aspects of development it has a symbiotic link with the other aspects of development it helps generate savings for investment 5. a) b) c) GDP is not a sufficient indicator of development because, some economic activities are left out of the calculation large countries have bigger GDP it does not reflect how income is distributed 6. a) b) c) GDP per capita is a useful indicator because, it helps inter country comparison of living standards it helps to understand what each individual earns in a country it is a better indicator than total GDP 7. a) b) c) To make GDP per capita internationally comparable, they must be calculated in US$ they should be calculated in the strongest international currency they can be calculated in any currency adjusted for purchasing power in different countries. 8. a) b) c) The Lorenz curve is a good indicator of development since it tells you the percentage of poor people in a country the degree of inequality of income distribution the quality of life in a country 9. a) b) c) The Gini Coefficient is a better indicator...
Words: 8097 - Pages: 33
...DIRECT INVESTMENT AND ECONOMIC GROWTH IN TURKISH ECONOMY A TERM PAPER SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULLFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS OF THE COURSE ECON 466 DEPARTMENT OF ECONOMICS BY VEYSEL ERDEM TORAMAN FALL, 2012 ABSTRACT This paper elaborates on the foreign direct investment and the economic growth in the Turkish economy by surveying literature and constructing empirical analysis. The Turkish economy and its brief history with foreign direct investment is analyzed following and both empirical studies and researches showed that the low and inadequate levels of foreign direct investment in Turkey has no effect on economic growth. 1. INTRODUCTION In simplest economic terms, investment is what makes the economy grow in terms of inputs of production, technology and other instruments causing the production process to occur. An in a globalized worlds of ours, the investment could be foreign or domestic whether the economy is not eligible to support their own, open to trade or highly geopolitical. Foreign investment may bring foreign currency, technology transfer, skilled labor etc. and all of those are crucial for a country to grow in both financial and real terms. In other words, in today’s world, for most of the countries, attracting and getting foreign direct investment is very important. There are economies that have almost 20-25% of their GDP’s as foreign investment. The types of this foreign investment may be direct, long term or short term. Direct investments include...
Words: 5756 - Pages: 24
...Quantitative Methods Inquires CORRELATIONS BETWEEN CAPITAL MARKET DEVELOPMENT AND ECONOMIC GROWTH: THE CASE OF ROMANIA1 Laura OBREJA BRASOVEANU PhD, Associate Professor, Finance Departament, University of Economics, Bucharest, Romania E-mail: laura_obreja@yahoo.com Victor DRAGOTA2 PhD, University Professor, Finance Departament, University of Economics, Bucharest, Romania E-mail: victordragota@yahoo.com, victor.dragota@fin.ase.ro Delia CATARAMA PhD Candidate, Assistant Professor, Finance Departament, University of Economics, Bucharest, Romania E-mail: delia.catarama@fin.ase.ro Andreea SEMENESCU3 PhD Candidate, University Assistant, Finance Departament, University of Economics, Bucharest, Romania E-mail: asemenescu@yahoo.com Abstract: In the literature on endogenous growth, the link between capital markets development and economic growth has received much attention. Although there are many studies regarding this aspect, approaches on emergent ex-communist countries’ economies, especially for Romania, are very few comparatively to the general cases. Our paper examines the correlation between capital market development and economic growth in Romania using a regression function and VAR models. The results show that the capital market development is positively correlated with economic growth, with feed-back effect, but the strongest link is from economic growth to capital market, suggesting that financial development follows economic growth, economic growth determining financial...
Words: 5235 - Pages: 21
...contrasts the following countries: ➢ Brazil ➢ South Korea ➢ Poland Functional Scope: This report provides an insight into the international market screening process for Whole Foods. It outlines specific procedures that were undertaken in order to evaluate each prospective expansion destination and eliminate the two least viable options. In order for Whole Foods to deem a market successful, it must be able to achieve and sustain the following factors: • Provide the highest quality of natural and organic products available • Satisfy and delight customers • Build a supportive and winning team • Create wealth through profits and growth • Promote the health of stakeholders through healthy eating education Ensuring a successful market introduction required...
Words: 3652 - Pages: 15
...subsidiary * Companies wishing to enter a new market * People wishing to reside in the country Factors Considered in a Country Analysis A country analysis is often conducted through country reports researched by professional government or independent firms, such as the Economist Intelligence Unit, World Bank and Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). Some of the data points considered in a country analysis are: Economic Indicators: Indicators such as gross domestic product (GDP), consumer price index (CPI), inflation rate and producer price index (PPI) help in gauging a country’s economic health. High GDP growth, low inflation and high CPI are favorable for companies and investors. These indicators also reflect job availability and standard of living in the country. Government Policy: Governments often introduce policies and programs to promote the growth of certain industries. Favorable government policies (such as subsidies and tax rebates) attract multinational and domestic companies. Industry Association Support: An industry association not only works towards enhancing opportunities, but also lobbies the government for easing regulations. Financial Markets: The extent of regulations, liquidity and volatility determine how reliable the financial markets in a country are. The...
Words: 9826 - Pages: 40
...TABLE OF CONTENTS PHYSICAL FORCES …………………………………………………........……... p. 3 ECONOMIC & SOCIOECONOMIC FORCES ...………………………...........… p. 4 SOCIOCULTURAL FORCES …………………………………………........…..... p. 5 COMPETITIVE & DISTRIBUTIVE FORCES …………………………...........… p. 6 MARKETING & MANAGEMENT ASSESSMENT …………………….........… p. 8 APPENDIX ……………………………………………………………........…….. p.9-11 BIBLIOGRAPHY …………………………………………………………............ p. 12 PHYSICAL FORCES Location: Next door neighbor to the huge market that will be created under the North American Free Trade Agreement: Mexico, United States, Canada (with 360 million consumers), and member of the Central American market (with 30 million consumers). This geographic proximity substantially lowers time and costs of communications and transportation and makes a "quick response " framework possible. Political Relationship: Congressional, municipal, and first-round presidential elections took place on September 9, 2007. The final round of presidential elections took place on November 4, 2007. Inauguration for the new president and the new Congress took place on January 14, 2008. The next presidential elections are scheduled for September 2011. Common and violent crime, aggravated by a legacy of violence and vigilante justice, presents a serious challenge. Impunity remained a major problem, primarily because democratic institutions, including those responsible for the administration of justice, have developed only a limited capacity...
Words: 2315 - Pages: 10
...increasing ODA inflow, the savings-investment gap was as high as 20 percent of GDP, leaving a huge gap to be bridged by non-ODA inflows (Getnet Alemu, 2009). The role of foreign aid on economic growth in Ethiopia The presence of a resource gap (saving-investment, fiscal and foreign exchange gap) in less developed countries forces those country to look outward for foreign aid in order to fill the gaps, these gaps are perceived to be the binding constraint for economic growth( Tasew Tadesse, 2011). As Ethiopia’s economy is characterized by a massive inflow of foreign aid, it is important to review studies conducted on this area. The most permanent feature of the Ethiopian economy is the presence of resource (financial) gap. The resource gap can be explained as the presence of savings investment gap, foreign exchange gap and fiscal gap. In Ethiopia, in the near past years the savings-investment gap has been widening from an average of 1.1% of GDP during the Imperial period (1960-74) to 6% of GDP during the Derg period (1974-91) to 11.7% of the GDP in the EPRDF (1991- 2008) (Tasew Tadesse 2001). The presence of resource gap pushes the country to rely on an inflow of foreign aid to close the...
Words: 1518 - Pages: 7
...to inflation | 3. Relatively stable price level | * Maintaining the real value of the currency * Low (positive) rate of inflation | 4. Sustainable levels of public and national debt | * Public debt: during a budget deficit, the government must borrow from the private sector to meet its spending * Foreign debt: borrowing by domestic residents from foreign countries, influenced by economy’s current account deficits | 5. Balancing current and future consumption | * The relationship between investments and saving in an economy | 6. Full Employment | * Providing employment for all individuals seeking work * Does not mean zero unemployment | Measuring national or aggregate output/Production: Gross Domestic Product (GDP) * The market value of final G&S (G&S at its last stage of production and ready to be consumed) produced in a country during a given period of time. * The most important and most commonly used measure of output * Is a flow variable measured in quarters * Annual GDP: * Calendar- Mar 11, June 11, Sep 11, Dec 11 * Financial- Sept 11, Dec 11,...
Words: 5901 - Pages: 24
... | TABLE OF CONTENTS LIST OF FIGURES 3 ABSTRACT 4 1. INTRODUCTION 5 2. LITERATURE REVIEW 8 3. CURRENT ISSUES AND ANALYSIS 11 4. CONCLUSION 16 5. REFERENCES 17 LIST OF FIGURES Chart A.1: The breakdown of IMF structural economic conditions 5 Figure 1: Voting rights between USA and BRICS countries 6 Chart A.2: The relationship between economic freedom and income per capita 8 Chart A.3: Economic countries of property rights and per capita GDP 9 Table 1.A: Cumulative amount received from the World Bank and the GDP per capita 11 Abstract I analyzed the positive and negative aspects of IMF and World Bank referring to recent situations of countries that borrowed money from these Institutions. Then, I highlighted some criticism of the World Bank and the IMF encompasses a whole range of issues but they generally center on concern about the approaches adopted by the World Bank and the IMF in formulating their policies, and the way they are governed. I have also pointed out some other critics of the World Bank and...
Words: 3971 - Pages: 16