The lessons of East Asia : common foundations of East Asian success
Petri, Peter A.
From small city states to large resource-rich countries, East Asia has developed remarkably fast. The region's diversity, however, is not adequately recognized in previous interpretations of its economic miracle. Several alternative explanations have been offered, emphasizing sustained market-oriented policies, cultural propensities for education, entrepreneurship and stable government. Each of these explanations provides insight into the causes of one or more of the region's miracles, but none fits fully the region's wide-ranging experience. This paper argues that the common features of East Asian development lie deeper in success along three critical dimensions of economic management. Each East Asian miracle economy built a stable macroeconomic environment conducive to investment and enterprise; used powerful market or non-market incentives to guide resources and initiative into efficient activities; and found a dynamic engine of growth to provide leadership for development. Each did so, however, with very different policies. The paper also proposes that East Asian growth was reinforced by the contagion effects of rapid progress and successsful policies, which helped each economy achieve more than it could have in a less dynamic setting.
Show more [+] Less [-]AGROVOC Keywords
Bibliographic information
This bibliographic record has been provided by World Bank
