Bank on Asian Miracles

[Ben Crow <bencrow@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Some months ago, I described how criticism from the government of japan
of World Bank development orthodoxy (the market friendly, export oriented
strategy of the 1991 World Development Report) had
prompted the Bank to initiate a study of the 'East Asian Miracles'.
The results of that study are now out in print (The EAM: Economic Growht and
Public Policy, OUP, 1993).
The question the report addresses is: why have East Asian economies (and it
selects 8) been able to grow (/industrialize) more successfully than other
developing economies? The answer it arrives at (several million dollars
later) is largely an unrepentant regurgitation of the market friendly
strategy, but there are some interesting additions, deviations and
arguments.
One addition is the belated recognition that an alternative account
of East Asian success exists (notably, Alice Amsden and Robert Wade). This
account, called the Revisionist interpretation, is not addressed
explicitly, but the section of the report which dismisses the significance
of industrial promotion, implicitly provides their rebuttal.
A deviation is the recognition that the East Asian Economies appear to
have a more equitable distribution of income than most developing
economies (this argument was given prominence in the NYT a week
or two back, with photos of two of the books authors, Nancy Birdsall
and Richard Sabot) and that this could have played a role.
Another deviation is the beginning of a recognition that
the relative autonomy of the state may play a role. This idea
(developed by Amsden and by R Jenkins in a recent Development
and Change, no doubt by many others too) is not developed
explicitly in the analysis but appears occasionally to
provide explanation of the greater competence of east asian
governments.

I am posting this (hasty) note to ask if others have read the report.
I recommend it as an interesting read, unusual in its
recognition of alternative political economy explanations.
Ultimately, it confirms my view that the Bank falls into the
statistical category one of my students found in an Indian
government survey investigating why hill people did not attend
school: 'no aptitude for education' (64% were deemed to fall in
this category).

Ben Crow
Food Research Institute
Stanford University.