How Asia Got Rich: Japan, China and the Asian Miracle is a 2002 non-fiction book by Edith Terry, published by M.E. Sharpe.
The book argues that Japan was the main impetus for the development of East and Southeast Asia in the 20th century. [1]
The book took about ten years to develop. Edith Terry had a background as a journalist. [2]
The development of the philosophy of Japanese economics is the topic of the initial chapters. [2]
Edith Terry did not do original research in her economic analysis, and chose to use existing economic theory models instead of trying to make her own. [3]
Terry included background information on people that John E. Butler (Chinese name: 畢約翰) of Hong Kong Polytechnic University characterized as ""trivial""; Butler theorized that this was so "Perhaps because of her journalist background". [3]
Butler praised the book, stating that the "extremely well-written" book did not have redundant content and that it did not have a "ponderous academic tone" because of Terry's career background's influence in writing the book. [2] According to Butler, the economic information "is often based on rigorous research" and that the references used for it are "credible" even though some of it is "anecdotal". [3]
Morgen Witzel of the University of Exeter wrote that How Asia Got Rich "is well worth having in any business library", citing "detailed and readable" information. [4] Witzel did not agree with several statements that the book argued for, and argued that the book should have placed more emphasis on what China could do in subsequent years. [4] Witzel believed that there would be people disagreeing with Japan's prominence in the economies of East and Southeast Asia by the 1990s. Witzel added that the "real meat" of How Asia Got Rich was in the book's concluding chapter and other ending chapters. [1]
The Four Asian Tigers are the developed Asian economies of Hong Kong, Singapore, South Korea, and Taiwan. Between the early 1950s and 1990s, they underwent rapid industrialization and maintained exceptionally high growth rates of more than 7 percent a year.
Wealth is the abundance of valuable financial assets or physical possessions which can be converted into a form that can be used for transactions. This includes the core meaning as held in the originating Old English word weal, which is from an Indo-European word stem. The modern concept of wealth is of significance in all areas of economics, and clearly so for growth economics and development economics, yet the meaning of wealth is context-dependent. A person possessing a substantial net worth is known as wealthy. Net worth is defined as the current value of one's assets less liabilities.
The Shōwa era was the period of Japanese history corresponding to the reign of Emperor Shōwa from December 25, 1926, until his death on January 7, 1989. It was preceded by the Taishō era and succeeded by the Heisei era. The pre-1945 and post-war Shōwa periods are almost completely different states: the pre-1945 Shōwa era (1926–1945) concerns the Empire of Japan, and post-1945 Shōwa era (1945–1989) concerns the State of Japan.
Paul Robin Krugman is an American economist who is the Distinguished Professor of Economics at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York and a columnist for The New York Times. In 2008, Krugman was the sole winner of the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences for his contributions to new trade theory and new economic geography. The Prize Committee cited Krugman's work explaining the patterns of international trade and the geographic distribution of economic activity, by examining the effects of economies of scale and of consumer preferences for diverse goods and services.
Institutional economics focuses on understanding the role of the evolutionary process and the role of institutions in shaping economic behavior. Its original focus lay in Thorstein Veblen's instinct-oriented dichotomy between technology on the one side and the "ceremonial" sphere of society on the other. Its name and core elements trace back to a 1919 American Economic Review article by Walton H. Hamilton. Institutional economics emphasizes a broader study of institutions and views markets as a result of the complex interaction of these various institutions. The earlier tradition continues today as a leading heterodox approach to economics.
The Wealth and Poverty of Nations: Why Some are So Rich and Some So Poor is a 1998 book by historian and economist David Landes (1924–2013). He attempted to explain why some countries and regions experienced near miraculous periods of explosive growth while the rest of the world stagnated. The book compared the long-term economic histories of different regions, specifically Europe, United States, Japan, China, the Arab world, and Latin America. In addition to analyzing economic and cliometric figures, he credited intangible assets, such as culture and enterprise, to explain economic success or failure.
Developmental state, or hard state, is a term used by international political economy scholars to refer to the phenomenon of state-led macroeconomic planning in East Asia in the late 20th century. In this model of capitalism, the state has more independent, or autonomous, political power, as well as more control over the economy. A developmental state is characterized by having strong state intervention, as well as extensive regulation and planning. The term has subsequently been used to describe countries outside East Asia that satisfy the criteria of a developmental state. The developmental state is sometimes contrasted with a predatory state or weak state.
The flying geese paradigm is a view of Japanese scholars regarding technological development in Southeast Asia which sees Japan as a leading power. It was developed in the 1930s, but gained wider popularity in the 1960s, after its author, Kaname Akamatsu, published his ideas in the Journal of Developing Economies.
The Shinmin no michi was an ideological manifesto issued by the Ministry of Education of Japan during World War II aimed at Japan's domestic audience to explain in clear terms what was expected of them "as a people, nation and race".
Ha-Joon Chang is a South Korean economist and academic. Chang specialises in institutional economics and development, and lectured in economics at the University of Cambridge from 1990–2021 before becoming professor of economics at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) in 2022. Chang is the author of several bestselling books on economics and development policy, most notably Kicking Away the Ladder: Development Strategy in Historical Perspective (2002). In 2013, Prospect magazine ranked Chang as one of the top 20 World Thinkers.
The Great Divergence or European miracle is the socioeconomic shift in which the Western world overcame pre-modern growth constraints and emerged during the 19th century as the most powerful and wealthy world civilizations, eclipsing previously dominant or comparable civilizations from the Middle East and Asia such as Qing China, Mughal India, the Ottoman Empire, Safavid Iran, and Tokugawa Japan, among others.
The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism is a 2007 book by Canadian author and social activist Naomi Klein. In the book, Klein argues that neoliberal economic policies promoted by Milton Friedman and the Chicago School of Economics have risen to global prominence because of a deliberate strategy she calls "disaster capitalism". In this strategy, political actors exploit the chaos of natural disasters, wars, and other crises to push through unpopular policies such as deregulation and privatization. This economic "shock therapy" favors corporate interests while disadvantaging and disenfranchising citizens when they are too distracted and overwhelmed to respond or resist effectively. The book challenges the narrative that free market capitalist policies have been welcomed by the inhabitants of regions where they have been implemented, and it argues that several man-made events, including the Iraq War, were intentionally undertaken with the goal of pushing through these unpopular policies in their wake.
In sociology, the East–West dichotomy is the perceived difference between the Eastern and the Western worlds. Cultural and religious rather than geographical in division, the boundaries of East and West are not fixed, but vary according to the criteria adopted by individuals using the term.
The Other Canon Foundation is a center and network for research of heterodox economics founded by Erik Reinert. The name refers to the founders' message of there being another economic canon, alternative to the ruling neoclassical economics. Their suggestions, they claim, are valid for and can be applicated in the first, second and third world.
Franklin "Frank" J.B. Stilwell is an Australian political economist and Professor Emeritus. He is known for establishing, with Evan Jones, Gavan Butler, Margaret Power, Debesh Bhattacharya, Geelum Simpson-Lee and Ted Wheelwright, an independent political economy department at the University of Sydney. His research interests include theories of political economy, inequality, urbanization, and regional development, Australian economic policy and the nature of work. His textbooks on the subject are standard teaching material for all university students in Australia studying the field of Political Economy. Stilwell's contribution to heterodox economics makes him a noteworthy figure of the Australian New Left.
The Return of Depression Economics and the Crisis of 2008 is a non-fiction book by American economist and Nobel Prize winner Paul Krugman, written in response to growing socio-political discourse on the return of economic conditions similar to The Great Depression. The book was first published in 1999 and later updated in 2008 following his Nobel Prize of Economics. The Return of Depression Economics uses Keynesian analysis of past economics crisis, drawing parallels between the 2008 financial crisis and the Great Depression. Krugman challenges orthodox economic notions of restricted government spending, deregulation of markets and the efficient market hypothesis. Krugman offers policy recommendations for the prevention of future financial crises and suggests that policymakers "relearn the lessons our grandfathers were taught by the Great Depression" and prop up spending and enable broader access to credit.
Oriental Despotism: A Comparative Study of Total Power is a book of political theory and comparative history by Karl August Wittfogel (1896–1988) published by Yale University Press in 1957. The book offers an explanation for the despotic governments in "Oriental" societies, where control of water was necessary for irrigation and flood-control. Managing these projects required large-scale bureaucracies, which dominated the economy, society, and religious life. This despotism differed from the Western experience, where power was distributed among contending groups. The book argues that this form of "hydraulic despotism" characterized ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia, Hellenistic Greece and imperial Rome, the Abbasid Caliphate, imperial China, the Moghul empire, and Incan Peru. Wittfogel further argues that 20th century Marxist-Leninist regimes, such as the Soviet Union and People's Republic of China, though they were not themselves hydraulic societies, did not break away from their historical condition and remained systems of "total power" and "total terror".
Ye Tan is a Chinese economist and a research professor at the Institute of Economics of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences since 1988. In 2012, she was appointed as an adjunct professor at Peking University School of Economics. She is a member of the NSFC peer councillor, member of the 19th-century Japanese Society for Economic and Social Studies, and vice president of the Chinese Association of historic Economic Thought. She is the director of the Academy of History of Chinese Economic Thought.
Window guidance or informal guidance, is an informal policy instrument used to regulate the supply of credit in an industry or sector. Window guidance typically involves the use of benevolent compulsion in order to regulate the supply of credit as a way to achieve policy targets such as sustainability. Window guidance involves the use of monetary policy instruments including lending quotas as an informal way to subsidize or regulate the volume of credit in an industry or financial sector. Window guidance is often associated with the Bank of Japan's policies during the Japanese economic miracle, although similar policies have been widely used in the post WWII era in other Asian countries, as well as Western European countries and Canada.
Women and the Economic Miracle: Gender and Work in Postwar Japan is a non-fiction book by Mary Brinton, published by the University of California Press in 1993.