THERE ARE AT LEAST 3 MODELS OF EAST-ASIAN DEVELOPMENT

The World Bank study of the High Performing Asian Economies has gotten many of the basic lessons right. Central to this performance was the emphasis on the export of manufactures, the maintenance of macroeconomic stability, and a low level of inequality that, among other things, led to an emphasis on primary and secondary rather than tertiary education. But the study oversimplifies the lessons in important respects by trying to force three quite distinct models of development into a single format. The experience of laissez-faire Hong Kong, and to a lesser degree Singapore, is quite different from that of the interventionist states of Korea, Taiwan, and Japan, and these in tum vary significantly from the resource-rich countries of Southeast Asia.