Statistical Endeavors

Harmony in the Middle Kingdom

Image: Wikimedia Commons The four decades since Deng Xiaoping spearheaded “Reform and Opening Up” in China have seen growth on a scale unparalleled in modern history. Where hundreds of millions were once destitute, extreme poverty has been all but cast into the annals of history; the world competes to attract the wealth of China’s burgeoning middle and upper classes. Analyses of the country's explosive growth are aplenty. Real GDP has grown 64-fold, literacy is above 95%, and in a once Communist country the private sector, at least on paper, now accounts for 60 percent of economic activity. This piece, however, will look more at the stability of the country—while analysing potential economic factors underpinning this. A number of scholars predicted political and economic instability in China as nation rapidly became prosperous. Yet, in a country transformed, political and economic durability remain. The Chinese Community Party continues to enjoy high levels of popular leg...

On Myanmar

This is adapted from a paper I wrote for my Comparative Politics class at Harvard . A Friendless People Thousands have been killed. Hundreds of thousands have fled. They are a people without a home, much less a state. Such is the plight of the Rohingya, whom a UN spokesperson once called the most friendless people in the world. The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights has called the situation a “textbook example of ethnic cleansing” (“UN”). This latest wave of state-sponsored violence follows a series of attacks by militants—a small insurgent group, the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA)—in August on Myanmarese military outposts. The brutal military crackdown is ostensibly targeted at insurgents. Yet, it is unmistakably civilians who are bearing the brunt of the violence, with the UN High Commissioner calling the response “clearly disproportionate” and “without regard for basic principles of international law” (“UN”). The approach of ethnic institutionalism...

Revisiting the Asian Tigers' Paths to Success

Photo: Singapore Tourism Board In the mid-1960s, they were overrun by poverty and hopelessly underdeveloped. Within 25 years, their citizens ranked among the wealthiest in the world, and their cities buzzed with life. Among the most stunning economic growth stories in modern history is that of the Four Asian Tigers: South Korea, Taiwan, Singapore and Hong Kong. All four economies are today robust and highly developed, and although serious economic inequality inevitably persists, extreme deprivation has long since been cast into the annals of the past. How did these four East Asian countries generate such astounding growth? For much of the 1980s and the 1990s, there persisted a consensus view among economists that the growth of these economies could overwhelmingly be ascribed to open economic policies and a minimal role for the government. With regard to manufacturing—particularly relevant in the East Asian context—neoclassical economists, those with an ideo...

Bardonomics

Search This Blog