'Columbia University Libraries/Information Services'
Doi
Abstract
The Japan-born "flying-geese (FG)" theory of growth has recently gained recognition in academia and popularity in the media. Since Kaname Akamatsu introduced his ideas in a very broad fashion in the 1930s, opportunities abound for further elaboration and application to contemporary development issues. This paper reviews some of his key ideas and presents a reformulation from a new evolutionary structuralist perspective. The oft-used, yet vague, concept of "the ladder of economic development" is defined in terms of a "leading-sector" stages model, a la Schumpeter--and what comes next as a new rung is considered. The enabling mechanisms of structural upgrading are explored, and the dynamics and benefits of an FG formation of aligned countries are stressed. Also, a new stages (FG-theoretic) model of balance-of-payments is introduced to discuss the financial issues of "borrowed growth" and "global (G2) imbalances." The dynamics of structural upgrading and interactive growth via trade and investment within a hierarchy of countries is the essence of these reformulated FG models, which make up what is now increasingly shaped and recognized as "new structural economics.
