Industrialization meets globalization

노트 : This paper derives from extensive notes used for a lecture and related seminar given April 18, 2000 at Macalester College, St. Paul, Minnesota under the auspices of its Economics Department's Cargill Distinguished Visitor Program; thanks are due to Macalester's economics faculty for their invitation leading to the paper. Some of the work discussed herein was supported by the United Nations University, Institute for New Technologies, Maastricht, the Netherlands, and by the Joel Dean Foundation's funding of summer research by Swarthmore students in the social sciences; Esther Parker ’97 provided exceptionally able research assistance in the doing of the work

Industrial Policy In An Export-Propelled Economy: Lessons From South Korea\u27s Experience

Korea provides an illuminating case of state intervention to promote economic development. Like many other third world governments, Korea\u27s government has selectively intervened to affect the allocation of resources among industrial activities. It has used taxes and subsidies, credit rationing, various kinds of licensing, and the creation of public enterprises, for example. But these policies have been applied in the context of a radically different development strategy, one of export-led industrialization. Moreover, Korea\u27s economy has experienced exceptionally rapid development with relatively equitable distribution of the gains. This paper argues that the government\u27s selective industrial policies have contributed importantly to Korea\u27s rapid achievement of international competitiveness in a number of industries. Though accepted by many knowledgeable observers, the conclusion is controversial—inherently so owing to insufficient historical information and lack of agreement about the required counterfactual

Industrialization Meets Globalization: Uncertain Reflections On East Asian Experience

The efficacy of export-led industrialization in the hyper-successful East Asian economies depended in no small measure on the forces that drove globalization. These forces fueled transfers of technology in unprecedented volumes and by innovative means in a variety of industries, including those at the frontiers of global technological change. The successful exploitation of these transfers would not have been possible without purposeful, aggressive actions of the part of the recipient firms in order to realize the increased technological capabilities that they enabled. Firms were incited to undertake these activities by conducive, neoclassical policies which were crucially augmented with selective interventions that fostered rapid technological development. Owing to significant uncertainties about the future course of the global economy, comprehension of the ingredients of past success does not suffice to state the recipe for future success, but it is sufficient to identify the key areas of concern for future policy making