UC Davis lends its expertise to Asian countries suffering trade woes, famine and currency irregularities Extending their reach from the basic struggle for survival in North Korea to the intricacies of international trade, seven UC Davis professors are changing the way East Asia does business. They have advised government officials of several countries in the region and the leaders of an alphabet soup of international economic organizations. They've created ex-haustive data sets that have reshaped the way the United States and Chinese governments do business. And the research of one professor promises to influence domestic policy on private research organizations. Together, they are contributing to UC Davis' growing reputation for economic expertise in East Asia and helping the university realize its goal of seeking solutions to real-world challenges around the globe. Among the most compelling challenges the professors have tackled is the recurring famine and malnutrition in North Korea. Publishing a 1998 study on the issue were Daniel Sumner, professor of agricultural and resource economics and director of the Agricultural Issues Center; Hyunok Lee, a senior researcher in the same department; and a South Korean co-author. They concluded that the food shortage was more a problem of economic policy than of agriculture and called for a reformed trade policy that recognizes the need to import food. Already that research has been used by three international organizations in addressing the North Korean food shortage. "We thought it was really important," says Sumner, who has published extensively on international food security. "People were starving." Tackling the food shortage With Chinese researchers, Sumner and Associate Professor Scott Rozelle, also of agricultural and resource economics, are now tackling the food shortage of the isolationist country through a back door. They are surveying farmers in three abutting Chinese provinces about the effects of agricultural reforms. The hope, Sumner says, is that North Korean officials will find the study and its implications for their country non-threatening, since the study's focus is on agriculture and the reforms being examined were made under Communist rule. With staff at the U.S. Department of Agriculture's economic research service, Rozelle is also studying the extent to which a water shortage in northern China will affect grain production and, in turn, world agricultural markets. "The group at UC Davis is certainly recognized as one of the respected centers of research on Chinese agriculture," says Neil Conklin of the federal economic research service. "The fact that we work together makes both of our programs much more powerful and effective." Drawing on the latest in agricultural trade and population research, Rozelle helped write the 1999 report incorporating the World Bank's advice to China, its largest client. Since then, he has helped present its recommendations to Chinese policy-makers, including the vice premier responsible for the rural economy. Chairs influential think tank on agriculture Rozelle also chairs the advisory committee of China's Center for Agricultural Policy. One of the most influential think tanks in agriculture, the center conducts modern economic research on policy issues, does economic forecasting for the government and advises China's minister of agriculture. The Organization for Economic Cooper-ation and Development is yet another international body that has turned to UC Davis for its economic expertise in East Asia. For the organization, Rozelle and Colin Carter, professor and chair of agricultural and resource economics, have provided analyses regarding the developing economies of East Asia and their po-tential impact on world markets and competition. Carter, who has published extensively on agricultural trade in the Pacific Rim, is now investigating the implications of the World Trade Organization for developing countries that are not members of the economic cooperation organization. A contributor to the World Bank report on China, he is also advising the economic cooperation organization on the implications of China's entry into the WTO. Another UC Davis professor who has the ear of decision-makers is the Department of Economics' Wing Thye Woo, considered one of the world's leading economic experts on China and other Asian countries. He has advised several countries on macroeconomic and exchange-rate management, trade issues and financial-sector development. And he's often called on to prepare reports or make presentations to leading international organizations -- last year they included the World Economic Forum, the International Mone-tary Fund, the World Bank and the United Nations. Worked on China's two poorest provinces A few months ago, Woo embarked on a new project in China in cooperation with a think tank of the Chinese cabinet. He assembled an international team of experts in agriculture, business and economics and with them traveled to China's two poorest provinces to discuss economic development with local officials. "We hope it's the first step in collaboration toward development in those border provinces," Woo says. In 1997, Woo served an eight-month assignment as a special adviser to the U.S. Treasury. He analyzed Vietnam-U.S. and China-U.S. economic relations, and he accompanied the secretary to China to meet with the country's president and premier. It was on that trip that Woo made the connections necessary to get hitherto secret Chinese customs records. He and others -- economics professor Robert Feenstra, a graduate student and a Chinese partner -- compared the data with information on U.S. imports and exports to estimate more accurately the trade de-ficit between China and the United States. The Wall Street Journal called the political implications "far-reaching." The finding was made possible, in part, because Feen-stra had already drawn distinctions among bicycles, baby carriages and automobiles. He had developed a database of U.S. imports and exports from 1972 to 1994 that did away with broad, ambiguous categories -- such as wheeled goods -- to more accurately itemize specific products. "It's very rewarding," says Feenstra, "when you can contribute to the policy deliberations of your government at the highest level." Promoting basic research Both he and Assistant Professor Lee Branstetter, also of economics, head campus research and teaching programs on East Asia. Feenstra is director of the Pacific Rim Business and Development Program. Under the umbrella of the UC Davis Institute of Governmental Affairs, the program promotes basic research on Asian business and economic development and hosts lectures, workshops and conferences to share findings. Last summer Branstetter became director of the East Asian Studies Program. An interdisciplinary unit, it combines undergraduate study of East Asian language with coursework on history, politics, economics and more. The Advanced Technology Program of the U.S. Department of Commerce called on Branstetter's expertise to better understand the impact of federal research and development subsidies to research consortia organized by private firms under its auspices. He and a Japanese co-author reported on Japan's 40-year experience with similar policies to distill lessons for U.S. policy-makers. Now Branstetter is investigating the extent to which Japanese firms' foreign investment in the United States has contributed to the transfer of technology between the two countries. Success in adopting technology Recently, Branstetter chaired a conference at UC Davis that asked why East Asian countries have been successful in adopting U.S. technology while countries in other regions have not. Research presented at the conference made important strides in measuring technology transfer -- as difficult to track as the proverbial lightbulb turning on inside someone's head -- by using such sources of data as information on technology licensing agreements signed by South Korean and Taiwanese firms with foreign corporations. Professor William Skinner of anthropology, who began his field research in China in 1949, is beginning to publish the findings of a 10-year study of China's regional eco-nomies and their patterning of settlements from remote villages to major metropolises. One of his data sets includes records for 13 million persons, a 1 percent sample of the entire population in 1990. Important for Chinese domestic policy decisions, the data and preliminary results of the study are already being used to provide more accurate population projections and economic forecasts. "The research is about to become more widely known in China," says Skinner, who is working with a researcher at the Beijing Institute of Information and Control. "We're about to publish our first article in Chinese." In fact, the four professors who speak and write Japanese or Chinese say those skills help them to make inroads when conducting field work and to more broadly disseminate their scholarship. Skinner studied Chinese at the U.S. Navy's language school and Japanese at Columbia University. Of Chinese descent, Woo speaks many Chinese dialects. Rozelle, who began studying Chinese in junior high, pursued a double major in Asian studies and economics at UC Berkeley. And Branstetter studied Japanese in college and graduate school. "I still consider it to be one of the most valuable human capital investments I've ever made," he says. The investment of the seven professors in East Asian issues has its own returns. "I'm confident that my colleagues would agree," Sumner says, "that we get deep satisfaction from both contributing to scholarship in our discipline and using our expertise to contribute to the resolution of pressing public issues."