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.