April 4-5, 2003
Co-sponsored by the Center for the Study of Economy and Society, the East Asia Program, and the Clarke Program in East Asian Law and Culture
"Despite the common historical and cultural continuities of East Asia, it is uncommon for researchers to meet and share findings in the same panel and conference. Yet, as this conference will hopefully demonstrate, we have much to learn through such meetings..."
Victor Nee, CSES Director
Bringing together 17 scholars of East Asia from at home and abroad, this international conference on "Institutional Change in East Asia" was a very exciting event given the significance of continued economic globalization and domestic social change in East Asia. Open to members of the Cornell community and general public, the two-day event was jointly sponsored by the Center for the Study of Economy and Society, the East Asia Program, and the Clarke Program in East Asian Law and Culture.
"Institutional analysis needs to be comparative," commented Victor Nee, Goldwin Smith Professor of Sociology at Cornell and CSES Director. "Usually this is accomplished by area specialists as implicit within country analysis, but much can be gained from cross-country comparisons. Presently we lack the methods and data to do systematic comparative analysis for East Asia. Yet, simply to come together in this conference and share our feelings is an important step in the right direction."
The many observations and opinions shared at the conference centered on the story of contemporary East Asian institutional change, a portion of which is detailed below in closing.
The economies of East Asia underwent tremendous change in the 1990s. China's nascent market economy was incorporated into the world economy through foreign investments, off-shoring, and institutional integration. Financial crises in South Korea and Japan produced ripple effects in many arenas of economic life and drove regional economic integration. The organization of business enterprises, relationship between the state and the market, and structure of labor markets all arguably endured significant changes in these societies.
The East Asian economic models of the past may no longer be applicable to the current global economy. This may be seen not only in the dramatic transition to a market economy in China, but also in the pressures for far-reaching, market-driven institutional change in Japan as well as South Korea. East Asia's economies relied on a variety of state-centered models of economic development. Since the Meiji Restoration Japan has depended heavily on the state and government bureaucrats to steer its economic ship; South Korea and Taiwan have also followed state-centered strategies of market-oriented economic development. Similarly, China has pursued state socialist economic development since the mid-1950s. After its shift to reliance on markets for economic coordination, the state continues to shape the underlying pattern of structural change in China.
In the 1990s all of the East Asian economies sought a new balance between market and state coordination of economic activity. What remains unclear is whether new East Asian models are evolving from the institutional changes during that time. In the name of radical reform of its financial institutions, Japan is under pressure to adopt institutional arrangements more in line with the guidelines of the IMF and World Bank. South Korea is coming to rely more heavily on credit cards and consumer spending to fuel its economic growth. China's private entrepreneurs and burgeoning middle class provide a new social base for a market society with less obtrusive state interventions in civil life.
Conference Participants
Mary Brinton
Department of Sociology
Harvard University
"The Deinstitutionalization of Implicit Contracts in the Japanese Youth Labor Market"
Dukjin Chang
Department of Sociology
Seoul National University
"The Evolution of Korean Financial Markets since the Asian Crisis"
Robert E. Cole
Management of Technology Program & Department of Sociology
Haas School of Business
University of California at Berkeley
"Japanese Manufacturing Dilemmas: The ICT Industries"
Deborah Davis
Department of Sociology
Yale University
"From Renter Supplicants to Owner Consumers"
Ronald Dore
London School of Economics
"Japanese Exceptionalism: How Long Will It Last?"
Gary Hamilton
Department of Sociology & The Jackson School of International Studies
University of Washington
"The Emergence of Demand-Responsive Economies: A Reassessment of the 'Asian Miracle'"
Lisa Keister
Department of Sociology
The Ohio State University
"Capital Structure in Transition: The Transformation of Financial Strategies in China's Emerging Economy"
Justin Yifu Lin
China Center for Economic Research
Peking University
"Deflation and China's Economic Growth"
Mingxing Liu
National Bureau of Economic Research
Commentator
Victor Nee
Center for the Study of Economy and Society & Department of Sociology
Cornell University
"Economic Sociology of Institutional Change: Politicized Capitalism in China"
Yingyi Qian
Department of Economics
University of California at Berkeley
"How Reform Worked in China"
J. Mark Ramseyer
School of Law
Harvard University
"Capitalist Politicians, Socialist Bureaucrats? Legends of Government Planning from Japan"
AnnaLee Saxenian
School of Information Management and Systems & Department of City and Regional Planning
University of California at Berkeley
"Taiwan's Hsinchu Region: Imitator and Partner for Silicon Valley"
Robert J. Smith
Department of Anthropology
Cornell University
Commentator
Richard Swedberg
Department of Sociology & The Center for the Study of Economy and Society
Cornell University
Panel Chair
Zun Tang
Department of Sociology
Cornell University
"The Deinstitutionalization of Implicit Contracts in the Japanese Youth Labor Market"
Henry Wan, Jr.
Department of Economics
Cornell University
Commentator
