Economic Integration in East Asia: Production networks and small and medium enterprises (Routledge-ERIA Studies in Development Economics) - Hardcover

"The book is carefully presented with clear details. While the book is quite academic, interspersed with econometric terms in some chapters, it is written with great clarity and sound economic explanation. The most valuable contribution of this book lies in the two large extensive surveys conducted, producing rich survey results and analyses... The book is highly recommended for researchers and postgraduate students, studying SME’s and production networks in East Asia. Policymakers should also find this book to be very useful resource in understanding the role of SMEs in the economy, and also to better understand the constraints facing them, thereby gaining insights for policy design."

Wai Heng Loke, The University of Nottingham Ningbo China, The Journal of Southeast Asian Economies

International production networks in manufacturing, particularly in machinery industries, have rapidly developed over the last two decades, resulting in dramatic increases in intra-regional and intra-industry trade, providing a key source of regional growth, integration and development in East Asia. This book provides a better understanding on how to effectively further increase SME participation in East Asian production networks, and in doing so identifies key challenges and issues that they need to address. This book aims to not only fill the theory-practice gap, but also to lay solid foundations for designing national arrangements and a regional institutional frameworks to further encourage and support SME engagement and participation in regional and global production networks.

The book contains several country case studies and by drawing upon individual country experiences, at various stages of economic development, this book demonstrates the varying difficulty faced by SMEs in ASEAN member countries attempting to participate in regional production networks and highlighting differences in needs and policy priorities.

This book offers both a more focused theme on the assessment of globalization and a rather unique approach by focusing upon the particular importance of SMEs, and by utilizing micro-level data at the firm or plant level. Its policy insights and the richness and uniqueness of the empirical findings will make the book an invaluable contribution to understanding East Asian production networks.