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This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press's mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1991

"Why do some middle-income countries diversify their economies but fail to upgrade - to produce world-class products based on local inputs and technological capacities? Why have the "little tigers" of Southeast Asia, such as Thailand, continued to lag behind the Newly Industrializing Countries of East Asia? Richard F. Doner goes beyond "political will" by emphasizing institutional capacities and political pressures: Development challenges vary. Upgrading poses tough challenges that require robust institutional capacities. Such strengths are political in origin. They reflect pressures, such as security threats and resource constraints, which motivate political leaders to focus on efficiency more than clientelist payoffs. Such pressures help to explain the political institutions - "veto players" through which leaders operate. Doner assesses this argument by analyzing Thai development historically, in three sectors (sugar, textiles, and autos) and in comparison with both weaker and stronger competitors (Philippines, Indonesia, Taiwan, Brazil, and South Korea)."--Jacket

Alice Amsden is one of the founders of the "statist" or "revisionist" school of East Asian economic development. Her earlier book, Asia's Next Giant (1989), refuted claims that growth in South Korea and other Newly Industrialized Countries was simply a function of high investment rates and correct prices, based in turn on the small-government fundamentals of stable, private property rights, macroeconomic stability, and trade liberalization. Amsden, along with others, emphasized the benefits of sector-specific state interventions distinctly at odds with neoclassical prescriptions.

Analyses of economic growth have drawn on the experiences of the East Asian newly industrializing countries to highlight the contribution of cohesive and autonomous states in the resolution of market failures. Within an explicit collective action and public goods framework, this article argues for an institutionalist approach to development that incorporates, but also goes beyond, statism. Through an examination of auto manufacturing in five countries in Southeast and Northeast Asia, the article identifies specific collective action problems central to the development process, and it explores limits to the capacities of even strong states to resolve such problems. The article stresses the role of private sectors and joint publicprivate sector institutions, identifies systematic differences within and among local entrepreneurs with regard to development issues, emphasizes the need for research on factors influencing the supply of institutions; and argues for an approach to development that emphasizes cooperation among domestic interests rather than domination.

Why do some economies grow for several years and then stall? One obvious answer is that these economies have "overheated." Another is that foreign demand for their products has dried up. This article explores a longer-term explanation—namely, that the institutions favorable for one stage of economic growth are less suitable for a subsequent stage. This idea of "growing into trouble" is consistent with Dani Rodrik's argument that the institutions required to stimulate growth may not be sufficient to sustain growth. We push this idea further by exploring the different requirements of structural change versus upgrading. Structural change connotes an economy's diversification through new investments, often producing real income growth. But economies can diversify without being more efficient, or their initial competitiveness can be based largely on transient factor endowment advantages. Upgrading refers to the competitiveness of these diverse activities achieved through locally based productivity improvements.