Panel

Panel: FDI and ILM in Southeast Asian Development

Convener: Professor Ching-lung Tsay, Institute of Asian Studies
Tamkang University, Tamshui, Taipei, TAIWAN
e-mail:ctsay200@yahoo.com fax: 886-2-2620-9904

The phenomena of international labour migration (ILM) and foreign direct investment (FDI) could be best understood as integral parts of economic development. In earlier studies, the relationship among FDI, ILM and economic development in Southeast Asia was examined in a framework of the Investment-Migration- Development Path (IMDP). The IMDP approach assumes an ideal situation where there are no impediments to FDI or ILM. Both FDI and ILM arise to equilibrate disparities in factor rewards driven by different levels of economic development across countries. In reality, ILM and FDI are constrained by complex economic, institutional, and policy variables. The interactions of these variables jointly determine the shape and position of the two curves of net FDI and net ILM in the IMDP.
Western countries experienced problems related to ILM and FDI policies at various stages of national development. To a large extent, the unprecedented upsurge of the two factor movements in East and Southeast Asia since the mid-1980s has also reflected the working of the market mechanism. Differential levels of economic development and different speeds of economic growth lead to growing income disparity as well as diverging labour market transformations. The “pull” and “push” forces are generated to equalize capital and labour rewards across the markets in different countries. In most Southeast Asian countries, the ILM and/or FDI have indeed played important roles in economic development.
The main purpose of this panel is to investigate the experiences of Southeast Asian countries, especially the less developed ones, in taking “attracting FDI” and/or “facilitating ILM” as economic development strategies. It is of great interest to further formulate some propositions about how different development ideologies and policies taken by different countries have shaped their respective FDI and ILM trajectories. The panel also welcomes papers which aim at examining the effects of attracting FDI and facilitating ILM in reducing unemployment pressure and in improving standard of living in some Southeast Asian countries.