Summary and Conclusions

Abstract

As noted in the introduction, this book aimed at challenging the neoclassical explanation of industrial success, by looking into the role of government intervention in two prominent NICs: Brazil and Korea. According to the neoclassical view, the differences in industrial performance among LDCs, would have been related to two different policy regimes, with divergent trade orientations and distinct degrees of government intervention. That is, the EP, outward-looking regime, deemed intrinsically liberal and adopted by the best performers, notably the East Asian NICs; and the IS, inward-looking strategy, viewed, by contrast, as intrinsically interventionist, adopted by the majority of LDCs, notably the Latin America NICs and India. In order to test this hypothesis, the cases of Korea, representing the EP strategy, and Brazil, representing the IS regime, were then chosen, and the role of government intervention analysed.