This book is about the restructuring of industry in ten East Asian economies at the start of the twenty-first century. It examines the dynamic aspects of the region's industrial structures -- the changes occurring with globalisation fuelled by liberalisation and by a paradigm shift from industrial technology to information technology. The traditional "flying geese" concept is less relevant to explaining the economic and industrial development in the region as the pattern has become less predictable.

This book provides a comparative picture of the restructuring experiences of five Asian economies: South Korea, Singapore, Indonesia, Thailand and India. In the case of Indonesia and Thailand, the focus is on short-run structural adjustment measures, and in the case of South Korea and Singapore, the emphasis is on longer term industrial, trade, labour and financial sector policies. The chapter on India views the country's economic development in the light of the above analysis. The political economy of the policy-making process is examined in each case.

This book examines the process of structural adjustment that some of the East Asian countries had gone and thereby draw some lessons for India.

Touchées en 1997 par une crise d'une ampleur inégalée, les économies d'Asie de l'Est ont été contraintes d'adapter leurs appareils de production et leurs régimes de change, et de redéfinir leur position sur l'échiquier de la mondialisation. Le livre, écrit en anglais, analyse les mécanismes de reconstruction indispensables à la survie et au développement de ces économies.

The fast changing economic climate is creating substantial pressure for welfare state restructuring worldwide. Yet the discussion regarding challenges faced and the responses required has been confined to the 'standard welfare states' in the West. This book examines whether these challenges also apply to the countries in the East, whether these countries have generated different responses to their Western counterparts, and whether they have undergone a process of regime transformation while responding to these pressures. Comparative in approach, this book offers lively discussion on the new social challenges faced in East Asia following the unprecedented scale of the recent global financial crisis. It reaches beyond policy descriptions to offer more systematic analyses of welfare restructuring in the region in relation to the fast changing global economic order. By examining the dynamics of welfare state restructuring both in terms of continuity and change, it explores intensified impacts of global restructuring of welfare and the nature of welfare state adaptation in the region.

The 1997 Asian Crisis principally affected Thailand, Indonesia, Malaysia, and Korea, as well as other East Asian countries heavily dependent on intra-regional trade. Banks and other financial institutions quickly become insolvent, and heavily indebted industrial firms went bankrupt. Many of these firms were affiliated with the business groups of this region, yet most groups did not immediately collapse, indeed they proved remarkably robust, some surviving and even prospering. This book examines these East Asian business groups and their subsequent restructuring following the Asian Crisis. East Asian nations embarked on very different trajectories to this common external shock. The Asian Crisis affected the inter-relationships among the socio-cultural environment, the state, and the market of each country quite differently and had distinct effects on the operations of these countries' business groups. This slow yet divergent pattern of development provides evidence against theories of rapid global convergence. Yet East Asian business groups face an uncertain future. Foreign investors' influence has increased substantially since the crisis, as East Asian governments had to accommodate their demands to keep attracting foreign capital. Governments supervise banks more closely and have loosened restrictions on mergers and hostile takeovers, further strengthening the discipline of the market. Various entry barriers that had inhibited foreign multinationals from competing in national markets were lifted, exposing business groups to intensified foreign competition. Under these new conditions, business groups in East Asia should reconfigure their business structures and adjust their corporate governance systems to regain momentum for further growth. Business groups will continue to be important vehicles for the sustained future growth of this region, and this book presents a substantial amount of new data on this, which will be of interest to academics, researchers, and advanced students of East Asian business, and business practitioners working within the region.

South East Asia has for many centuries occupied a pivotal position in the wider Asian economy, linking China and the Far East with India and the Middle East, and since the early 1500s the region has also played a major role in the world-economy. South East Asia in the World-economy is a textbook survey of the area's interaction with these wider regional and international structure. Professor Chris Dixon demonstrates how this region's role has undergone frequent and profound chance as a result of the successive emergency and dominance of mercantile, industrial and finance capital. He shows how the region has developed as a supplier of luxury product, such as spices; as a producer of bulk primary products; and how, since the mid 1960s, it has become a major recipient of investment and a favoured location for European and American markets. The author examines how these phases in the evolution of the international economy have been reflected in the relations of evolution of the production and in the spatial pattern of economic activity. He also discusses how the progressive integration of South East Asia in the world-economy has established the dominance of a small number of core areas and produced a pattern of uneven development throughout the region. In a concluding chapter, Chris Dixon explores the prospects for South East Asia in the 1990s in the light of the restructuring of the world-economy.

"Catch-Up Industrialization offers an innovative examination of the economies of East Asia from the 1960s into the first decade of the 21st century. The book examines the way the political ideology of "developmentalism" has driven economic growth, the significance of innovative production and management techniques, the patterns of industrial relations characteristic of late-developing economies, and the way education shapes the workforce. It concludes with an assessment of East Asian economic development following the end of the Cold War and the East Asian currency crisis of 1997, which is based on economic liberalization and the rapid diffusion of information technology." "The term "catch-up" has rich implications. While it links developing and developed countries, it also defines the socioeconomic mindset common to high-growth societies of Asia. The author's argument differs from neoclassical approaches emphasizing the workings of the market, statist ones emphasizing policy rather than private initiatives, business studies lacking macroeconomic and global perspectives, work by development economists based on agriculture, and World Bank/IMF studies that lack socio-cultural and historical understanding." "The book contributes to a wide range of academic fields, all clearly linked to the central theme of how economies "catch-up": economic and business history, contemporary Asian studies, international relations, development economics, and the socio-economic origins of entrepreneurship."--BOOK JACKET.