The World Bank's East Asian Miracle: Too Much a Product of Its Time?

Nancy Birdsall

Journal of Economic Perspectives, 2025, vol. 39, issue 4, 127-48

Abstract: The 1993 publication of a World Bank book on the East Asian Miracle explained the extraordinarily rapid growth of Japan and seven other economies of East Asia (at 5 percent a year) between 1965 and 1990 as grounded in those economies' adherence to market "fundamentals"—sound macro management, "shared" growth policies, investment in human capital—combined with an "export push" which fostered the technological learning that drove those countries' high total factor productivity growth. The Bank authors dismissed "industrial policy" as central to their growth and cautioned against other developing countries adopting industrial policy in the absence of strong government institutions. Was the book too much a product of its post-Soviet, neoliberal era? Considering what we know now about the state of governance in developing countries, might industrial policy help boost growth in at least some developing countries?

JEL-codes: E23 F14 F33 L52 O10 O25 O47 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
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DOI: 10.1257/jep.20251449

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