A Leap into the Future: The Australia-Japan Working Holiday Agreement and Immigration Policy
The Australia-Japan Working Holiday Agreement of 1980 represented a leap of faith on the part of both governments in their own people. Unprecedented for Japan, and breaking with Anglophone cultural stereotypes for Australia, neither government could have objectively predicted the enormous success of the agreement, or that it would become a model for many more such agreements. Both governments counted on recognition developing of the cultural benefits of the agreement. Neither could have foreseen that the agreement would eventually have significant labour market effects, mainly positive, though different, in Australia and Japan.
Current issues concerning foreign workers in Japan
With concerns being voiced about a possible structural shortage of labor in the future due to a declining fertility rate and ageing of society in recent years, there is heightening pressure on Japan at EPA, WTO and other international arenas to accept foreign workers. At the same time, issues concerning foreign workers have been drawing attention at home, where there are calls for acceptance of workers from abroad in the interest of further globalization of Japan. This article overviews the current situation, the opinions of various circles, general public opinion, and policy issues among other things concerning foreign workers in Japan.
Did the metamorphosis from Export Processing Zones to Special Economic Zones improve the efficiency of trade enclaves in India?
In this paper, the efficiency of seven conventional Special Economic Zones in India is analyzed, by adopting a stochastic production frontier technique, for the period between 1986–1987 and 2007–2008.Results indicate that although the efficiency scores of these enclaves have improved over the years, specifically with the introduction of the SEZ policy (2000–2001), it is far below the threshold level as identified in the literature. Besides, one can also observe a discrepancy emerging between better export earning zones and efficient zones. On the determinants side, policy intervention and large geographical area, accompanied by clustering of units, are found to have impacted the efficiency scores of these enclaves positively.