DQ - Unplugged

This blog has moved

2011-10-08T14:14:00.000+01:00

To provide easier access from within certain large, fast-growing economies, I have moved this blog to http://DannyQuah.wordpress.com/ Of course, great firewalls continue to shift in their boundaries, but for now at least, this move will have to do.

"We didn't figure you were actually going to use all those cars we sold you"

2011-09-03T06:28:00.002+01:00

Obviously scary: But then in perspective: (Data from World Bank WDI 2011, produced using Google public data explorer)

Successful modern technology: Demand trumps supply

2011-06-04T21:27:00.008+01:00

Successful technology in economic growth is not just about pushing out the frontier; it’s about bringing everyone along. Put another way, it’s about raising the average, not just the very top of the distribution.This lesson has been with humanity ever since at least 14th-century China’s epic fail, although admittedly most of the time we are oblivious of it, given scholarly obsession with

The Great Shift East

2011-05-14T01:13:00.005+01:00

As the East continues to rise, everyone must now be asking out loud not just what is good for the West but what is good for the world. You would think. Yet, practically without challenge, ever greater policy discussion today turns on the West (or the US) retaining international economic dominance: “Is the West history? What must we do to respond?” That challenger to continued US hegemony is,

A terrifyingly hostile place to be born a girl

2011-05-03T06:10:00.005+01:00

When I wrote "How can hundreds of millions...", many readers, of course, quickly linked in their minds that gender imbalance to the many horrific tales one hears emerging from China's one-child policy. If 119 boys are born for every 100 girls - as usually reported for China - then that works out to 840 girls to 1000 boys. Given China's population of 1.3 billion, this means 24 million Chinese

How can hundreds of millions of something - anything - be scarce?

2011-04-25T00:04:00.007+01:00

I sat next to Jim Rogers on a panel once (so you don't think I'm just making this up), and he told me that right up there with all the other unstoppable so-unbelievably-massive-you-don't-think-it's-possible changes sweeping the world is how China's gender imbalance will soon make young Chinese women among the world's rarest commodities. Yes, all hundreds of millions of young Chinese women will

"I knew that would not work. Agent Texas [well..., she] is a bit of a badass."

2011-04-24T11:19:00.001+01:00

If you play Halo, you'll get the many inside jokes in this. But regardless of the vintage on your XBox Gamertag, the martial arts choreography here is simply amazing.(fight scene starts at 0:40). "Oh man, forget this. I need to get a bigger weapon."

Amy Farrah Fowler and soft power

2011-04-23T02:40:00.020+01:00

The Wall Street Journal ran this report last week: "Fleeing the Dollar flood: The world tries to protect itself from US monetary policy ."Time was, it was with some pride and hope that one read "When America sneezes, the world catches cold" - because US policy didn't threaten the world; it saved the world.So what if it was hubris? It was only the same kind of hubris you saw motivating the

Not what is good for the West but for the world

2011-04-20T03:18:00.002+01:00

The editor decided to lead with "As the economic center of gravity shifts East, the question should not be what is good for the West, but what is good for the world as a whole."That's what I should have written up front in The Shifting Global Balance of Power.

The global economy's shift. Follow-ups all over

2011-04-18T10:31:00.017+01:00

In January 2011 Martin Wolf wrote an introduction to my article The global economy’s shifting centre of gravity in Global Policy but decided not to follow it up himself. Recently, the article has seen some coverage in the international media.I'm not lazy, not really. But if I divert all these writeups into just this blog, reader comments are lost as they remain on the original website. And

The global economy's shifting centre of gravity

2010-07-30T04:21:00.014+01:00

Define the global economy's centre of gravity to be the average location of economic activity across geographies on Earth. If you go grab incomes and geographical location data across nearly 700 identifiable places on the planet (World Development Indicators Online, Asian Development Bank, Google Earth, Brinkhoff; Grether and Mathys) you will see that in 1980 the global economy’s centre of

Malaysia's New Economic Model: Making choices

2010-04-14T08:44:00.024+01:00

In June 2009, Malaysia's Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak asked if I would serve on his council of economic advisors, the National Economic Advisory Council (NEAC). This Council was to come up with a New Economic Model for the country. It would not be a group that got together every month to finetune the economy. This Council was not to sift through the entrails of inventory reports, and

Economics is a martial art

2010-04-02T09:31:00.011+01:00

A scream for help from the alleyway; what do you do? Move in cautiously but quickly? Or hold back because you worry that the whole thing might get messy?Do you fret that you haven't yet published the perfect model of these kinds of social dynamics and that until you do, you might do more harm than good? Or that you won't have the credibility? Credibility for what, for standing up to street

Time to save the world economy through the sheer weight of numbers

2009-07-17T08:52:00.022+01:00

Reuters reported yesterday (Thursday 16 July 2009) that with China's economic activity picking up in 2009Q2, the Chinese full-year 8% growth target might now be achievable.Will China save the world?No one can yet be sure how these latest developments will play out. Of course, upon hearing good news of this kind, nay-sayers are quick to relate how a more pessimistic picture is indicated by other

One quick look at the world's shifting economic centre of gravity

2009-05-28T09:25:00.022+01:00

With constant twitter and Facebook updates, I find myself putting off blogging anything altogether. Many items that might have appeared here have gone there instead. But then this entry doesn't really go in 140 characters.At Hay Festival last weekend I appeared together with Howard Davies on a panel discussing the global economic crisis. For that and for some work (teaching, writing) that I'm

Where in the world is Asian Thrift and the Global Savings Glut?

2008-11-16T23:54:00.050Z

Sometime in the early 1990s the US began to move its international trade account from approximate balance into burgeoning deficit. From then on the US trade deficit grew year on year so that by 2006 the US consumed nearly US$900 billion more than it produced. Such excess amounted to 7% of US GDP—up from an average of 2% over 1990–1994. For perspective, the US trade deficit in 2006 was nearly

Martial arts on the mean streets of East Asia

2008-11-15T02:20:00.067Z

In his book Angry White Pyjamas Robert Twigger, the prize-winning poet and author, and martial artist, describes how in the 1930s Gozo Shioda would prowl the streets of Kabuki-cho Tokyo, looking to fight street gangs and test his martial arts skills. Decades after, Gozo Shioda went on to establish the Yoshinkan style of aikido. In the eyes of some, Shioda and his teacher Morihei Ueshiba were at

Who moved my BlackBerry... and those hundreds of millions of people?

2008-04-06T00:17:00.013+01:00

China and India are, for now, the only billion-people economies. In one popular telling, China shifted hundreds of millions of workers from farms to urban areas. In that story that switch rate, paired with reasonable assumptions on relative productivities in relatively backwards agriculture and forward-looking manufacturing just about matches China's overall growth rate, after factoring in

Pop music

2007-12-07T23:14:00.000Z

People ought to enjoy the arts for, err, well personal reasons. To the great disapproval of my friends who live in Hampstead and Islington (and parts of New York City. And Beijing. And Shanghai. Singapore. Mumbai. Helsinki. Rome. Brussels. Oh heck, just about everywhere) I enjoy pop music. For them pop music has no staying power and therefore no redeeming features. For me it is precisely

The Confidence of Nations

2007-09-29T01:52:00.000+01:00

In 1993 the New York Times ranked as one of the world’s top 10 restaurants the Far East Asian eatery Din Tai Fung (鼎泰丰): This restaurant specializes in xialongbao (small steamed dumplings). Overnight, culture snobs everywhere no longer had to hide their inner ethnic hawker stall-foodie. When I was growing up on a small Far East Asian island—when I say small, I mean 46 miles around—the height

Global balance and equality

2007-09-01T01:01:00.001+01:00

In August 2007 I was part of the opening keynote panel discussion at the Singapore Economic Review Conference (and got to have lunch with LSE alumni and friends in Singapore).I wanted to show the large forces that drive global inequality and poverty, those changes that affect, in one fell swoop, the quality of life for many of the 6.3 billion people on earth.I have two candidates for massive

"3 little syllables": LSE graduation, July 2007

2007-08-26T01:20:00.000+01:00

Given how knowledge is supposed to be just world knowledge---not Korean, Japanese, British, or American knowledge---it is impressive how much gets written comparing to those in the West the sheer numbers employed in Chinese science and technology, or the levels of expertise in Indian engineering. How long will it be, it is implied, before Chinese knowledge or Indian knowledge overtake Western

Oh no! Which camera?!

2007-06-07T08:47:00.000+01:00

At the Malaysia Gala dinner Tuesday evening (05 June 2007, here in London) Jimmy Choo won yet another richly-deserved award for fashion design.I was lucky enough to have our photograph taken together. But, err, whose camera did that go into?! Not mine. There were an awful lot of flashing lights and digital cameras and cellphones and reporters out. Hmmm. A picture lost forever, unless it magically

Yes, but where does this go on a CV?

2007-06-03T00:11:00.001+01:00

Thursday (31 May 2007) evening at taekwon-do class the blackbelts at one of the clubs where I train were asked to put on an impromptu demo, and we ended up working wooden boards (yes yes, I know, "boards... don't hit back").Long story short, here I am, on (WMV | QuickTime) video, breaking board with a jump spinning back kick. Personally, I think there's nothing more impressive than a long line

Did Hollaback Girl scan more easily than Bootylicious?

2006-12-21T11:56:00.000Z

One of the really enjoyable things about being Head of Department is attending graduation ceremony and reading out, to the assembly, the names of all the economics students who are graduating. The freshly-minted graduates come up on stage, one at a time, and shake hands with the Director. At the LSE we have two of these ceremonies each year. And each time around I marvel at how well our students