IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/aea/jecper/v39y2025i4p127-48.html

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

Author

Listed:
  • Nancy Birdsall

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?

Suggested Citation

  • Nancy Birdsall, 2025. "The World Bank's East Asian Miracle: Too Much a Product of Its Time?," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 39(4), pages 127-148, Fall.
    • Handle: RePEc:aea:jecper:v:39:y:2025:i:4:p:127-48
    DOI: 10.1257/jep.20251449
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.aeaweb.org/doi/10.1257/jep.20251449
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to AEA members and institutional subscribers.
    File URL: https://www.aeaweb.org/articles/materials/24167
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1257/jep.20251449?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to

    for a different version of it.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • E23 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Consumption, Saving, Production, Employment, and Investment - - - Production
    • F14 - International Economics - - Trade - - - Empirical Studies of Trade
    • F33 - International Economics - - International Finance - - - International Monetary Arrangements and Institutions
    • L52 - Industrial Organization - - Regulation and Industrial Policy - - - Industrial Policy; Sectoral Planning Methods
    • O10 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - General
    • O25 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Development Planning and Policy - - - Industrial Policy
    • O47 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Growth and Aggregate Productivity - - - Empirical Studies of Economic Growth; Aggregate Productivity; Cross-Country Output Convergence

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:aea:jecper:v:39:y:2025:i:4:p:127-48. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Michael P. Albert (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/aeaaaea.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.