Explaining Industrial Success in the Developing World

Abstract

Developing countries vary greatly in their experience of industrialisation (Weiss, 1988, Chenery et al., 1986). At one end of the spectrum are the ‘newly industrialising countries’ (NICs) of East Asia, which have enjoyed high, sustained growth of their manufacturing industries and are competing in world markets in a broad range of sophisticated industrial products. Industrial development has been the engine of their income growth and the structural tranformation of their economies. At the other end are the ‘least developed countries’, (LDCs) largely in Africa and some in Asia. These have rudimentary industrial sectors, producing a narrow range of mainly simple consumer goods. Their industries display little dynamism, export little, have few linkages (apart from primary inputs) with the domestic economy and often act as a drag on their economic growth. In between the two extremes lies the rest of the developing world, with greater or lesser success in building efficient, dynamic modern industry.