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From Washington Consensus to BeST Consensus for world development

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  • Keun Lee
  • John A. Mathews

Abstract

While the set of liberalising and fiscally conservative development precepts dubbed the 'Washington Consensus' are now discredited as a tool for development, there is as yet no widely adopted or accepted alternative other than references to the 'East Asian model'. In this paper, we distil the essence of the experience of East Asia-of Japan initially, then of Korea and Taiwan, and now of China-in a set of flexible precepts that we suggest underpin the policies and strategies pursued with success by these East Asian economies. In the spirit of proposing an alternative to the Washington Consensus, we suggest that these precepts-pragmatic and known to work-be dubbed the Beijing-Seoul-Tokyo Consensus (or BeST Consensus for development). The essence of this consensus is its focus on capability building, on dynamic transitions from one stage to the next, and on building an institutional platform to capture latecomer effects. We outline what this BeST Consensus might be and discuss why it is that its elements appear to work so well; and whether they can still be applied in the world of 21st-century conditions. Copyright © 2010 The Authors. Journal compilation © 2010 Crawford School of Economics and Government, The Australian National University and Blackwell Publishing Asia Pty Ltd..

Suggested Citation

  • Keun Lee & John A. Mathews, 2010. "From Washington Consensus to BeST Consensus for world development," Asian-Pacific Economic Literature, Asia Pacific School of Economics and Government, The Australian National University, vol. 24(1), pages 86-103, May.
  • Handle: RePEc:bla:apacel:v:24:y:2010:i:1:p:86-103
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    3. Lee, Keun, 2017. "Financing Industrial Development in Korea and Implications for Africa," MPRA Paper 111036, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    4. Keun Lee, 2013. "Capability Failure and Industrial Policy to Move beyond the Middle-Income Trap: From Trade-based to Technology-based Specialization," International Economic Association Series, in: Joseph E. Stiglitz & Justin Yifu Lin (ed.), The Industrial Policy Revolution I, chapter 4, pages 244-272, Palgrave Macmillan.
    5. Ahn, Sang-Jin & Yi, Seung-Kyu, 2021. "Methodological framework for analyzing peace engineering: Focusing on Kaesong Industrial Complex and North Korean innovators in South Korea," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 163(C).
    6. Yoguel, Gabriel & Pereira, Mariano, 2014. "Industrial and technological policy: Contributions from evolutionary perspectives to policy design in developing countries," MPRA Paper 56290, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    7. Keun Lee and John Mathews, 2013. "Science, technology and innovation for sustainable development," CDP Background Papers 016, United Nations, Department of Economics and Social Affairs.
    8. Mthanti, Thanti & Ojah, Kalu, 2017. "Institutions, Human Capital and Entrepreneurial Orientation (EO): Implications for Growth Strategy," MPRA Paper 89551, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    9. Dilip K. Das, 2014. "The growth path of the dynamic Asian economies," Asian-Pacific Economic Literature, Asia Pacific School of Economics and Government, The Australian National University, vol. 28(1), pages 178-186, May.
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    11. Prud’homme, Dan, 2016. "Dynamics of China’s provincial-level specialization in strategic emerging industries," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 45(8), pages 1586-1603.
    12. Fang Wu & Qi Hu & Chenming Zhu & Haitao Wang & Qian Yu & Huaping Sun, 2021. "New Structural Economic Analysis of Anti-COVID-19 Pandemic Model of BEST Region," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 18(15), pages 1-23, July.

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