Of Dragons and Development

Economists could profitably treat academic publishing as a lagging economic indicator. Just as the Tokyo stock market hit its peak in late 1989, books on Japan's economic sucess began to pour off the presses; they still thrive today despite the fact that in the intervening three years, the Tokyo market has dropped over 50 per cent. In a like manner, academics are suddenly blessed with a plethora of studies of the countries presumably following in Japan's successful economic wake - the new Asian NICs of South Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Singapore; plus the potential 'next NICs', Thailand, Malaysia and Indonesia - just at the time that the world's investors are liquidating their holdings in these rather stagnant Asian markets and pouring them into the suddenly thriving economies of Argentina, Chile, Mexico and Brazil. Fortunately for scholars, the dividends paid by good books are less affected by the transitory events that create such wild swings in the equities markets. Good scholarship, like blue chip stock, generates high dividends regardless of the short-term performance of the ephemeral economic markets.