Moving Beyond Geopolitical Boundaries to Secure Democracy in Southeast Asia: Projecting EU in The QUAD

COVID-19 Pandemic has changed state’s view about development. After several economic damages, the plan to bounce back from pandemic impacts is by adopting GDP-ism development which sacrificing democracy. In Southeast Asia, The trend of deconsolidation of democracy indicated by several events such as military coup in Myanmar and protest against Omnibus Law in Indonesia. At the same time, 2020 also marked a revival of Quadrilateral talk between US, Australia, Japan, and India concerning China’s growing influence in Indo-Pacific region. Many scholars observe this cooperation is involving security strategy to contain China’s influence. But yet there are not many writings about democratization process as a way to hold China’s influence especially in Southeast Asia region. This paper is aimed to show that maintaining democracy is important for QUAD to secure their interests and this effort can involve parties beyond geopolitical boundaries. Hence, this paper would like to seek how EU engagement in QUAD can support democratization process in Southeast Asia by considering its economic influence and domestic politic situation in the region. Furthermore, as post-COVID-19 development is concerned in this paper, It is important to seek how democracy can contribute to foster state economic development and become alternative to Chinese development.

Targeted state economic development incentives and entrepreneurship

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to examine the relationship between state economic development incentives programs and entrepreneurial activity. Design/methodology/approach The authors use panel data and a fixed-effects model to examine the determinants of five measures of entrepreneurial activity. To measure state economic development incentives programs, they use a new and substantially improved data set from Bartik (2017). They also include a measure for economic freedom, the Fraser Institute’s Economic Freedom of North America index. Findings The authors find a robustly negative relationship between development incentives and patent activity. They find some evidence that incentives are negatively associated with small business establishments (<10 employees) as a percentage of total establishments but positively associated with the large business establishment (>500 employees) share. They also find evidence of a positive relationship between economic freedom and both patent activity and net business formation. Research limitations/implications The results imply that economic development incentive programs are unlikely to increase entrepreneurial activity and may decrease it. They also imply increased economic freedom (lower taxes, lower spending, and lower governmental restrictions on labor markets) may increase entrepreneurial activity. Originality/value To the authors’ knowledge, this paper provides the first examination of the relationship between development incentives and entrepreneurial activity that utilizes Bartik (2017), a new vastly improved data set of state economic development incentive programs. The paper also contributes to the literature on the relationship between economic freedom and entrepreneurial activity.

Knowledge Capital and Aggregate Income Differences: Development Accounting for US States

Improvement in human capital is often presumed to be important for state economic development, but little research links better education to state incomes. We develop detailed measures of worker skills in each state that incorporate cognitive skills from state- and countryof-origin achievement tests. These new measures of knowledge capital permit development accounting analyses calibrated with standard production parameters. Differences in knowledge capital account for 20–30 percent of the state variation in per capita GDP, with roughly even contributions by school attainment and cognitive skills. Similar results emerge from growth accounting analyses. These estimates support school improvement as a strategy for state economic development. (JEL I25, I26, J24, R11, R23)

The main characteristics of social institutions of state economic development

In this paper using of the conceptual content of the concept of “institution” described. The regulatory, informational, evolutionary, transactional and organizational approaches to the definition of the concept of “institution” are analyzed. The definitional, status and functional characteristics of social institutions of economic development of the country are analyzed and discussed.