Catch-Up Industrialization: The Trajectory and Prospects of East Asian Economies

Akira Suehiro

Catch-Up Industrialization is an innovative examination of how the political ideology of “developmentalism” has driven East Asian economic growth. The author considers innovative production and management techniques, the patterns of industrial relations, and the way education shapes the workforce, using this information to assess late 20th century East Asian economic development based on economic liberalization and the rapid diffusion of information technology.

The term “catch-up” links developing and developed countries, and defines the socioeconomic mindset common to high-growth societies of Asia. The author’s argument differs from neoclassical approaches emphasizing the workings of the market, statist ones emphasizing policy rather than private initiatives, business studies lacking macroeconomic and global perspectives, work by development economists based on agriculture, and World Bank/IMF studies that lack socio-cultural and historical understanding.

Akira SUEHIRO is Professor in the Institute of Social Science at the University of Tokyo, Japan.

publication year: 2008
416 pages
ISBN: 978-9971-69-383-1  Paperback  US$34.00  S$42.00

A co-publication with Kyoto University Press.
Our edition is available worldwide except in North America and Japan.