Enter the dragon: lessons for Australia from Northeast Asia?

Abstract

The 1980s saw a conscious restructuring of economic life in Australia. An influence has been the view that the economic success of Japan and the Asian "dragons' is because of their adoption of free trade and liberal market regimes. In this paper, evidence from Korea and Taiwan is used to show that this interpretation is seriously flawed. The growth of the dragons was not driven by comparative addvantage. Rather, the industries of the dragons were set up independently of their competitiveness; some became competitive by exporting. Industrialisation in the newly industrialised countries (NICs) exemplifies a variety of forms of local initiative by a state: how does it have the will and power to..