Information Technology and the New Globalization: Asia's economy today and tomorrow

Since the 1990s, reflecting the information technology (IT) revolution and end of the Cold War, the world economy has experienced a "new globalization" in which production processes are increasingly segmented and each process is placed in the optimal location (Baldwin 2016). Although IT and the new globalization have brought great economic benefits to Asian countries, some industries, workers, and regions in advanced countries including Japan have lost out. In recent years, the future of the new globalization has come under threat as a result of opposition by the losers of globalization as well as instability in the established international economic order through the rise of emerging countries. At the same time, the current new trend in production technologies of automation and data exchange (the Fourth Industrial Revolution) has the potential to radically change the division of labor in Asia once again. To analyze the economic development brought about by IT and new international division of labor, as well as its future, productivity, trade, and direct investment data at the detailed industry level such as the JIP Database are indispensable (Jorgenson et al. 2016). At this symposium, leading experts on the new globalization and on Asian and global productivity data will get together to discuss the new globalization and the present and future of the Asian economy.