The Rise of the Rest: Challenges to the West from Late-industrializing Economies - Tapa dura

An important book in the discussion on the role of government in economic growth. It deserves careful reading by anyone who is interested in development economics. Development and Change Amsden has made a powerful historical and cross-national case for the developmental importance of "getting institutions right and building skills". She has shown the costs and benefits of diverse models of capitalism within specific global contexts. Exploring the politics of growth in the "rest" will help us to assess the applicability of the rest's experiences to other developing countries. This is especially important in light of the danger that local institutional innovations - of the sort so effectively highlighted by Amsden - are being discouraged by globalization pressures. American Political Science Review The Rise of The Rest is one of the rare works on economic development that not only stresses technological learning but traces this process from the shop floor to the business group and to national policy incentives. American Political Science Review

After World War II a select number of countries outside Japan and the West--those that Alice Amsden calls "the rest"--gained market share in modern industries and altered global competition. By 2000, a great divide had developed within "the rest," the lines drawn according to prewar manufacturing experience and equality in income distribution. China, India, Korea and Taiwan had built their own national manufacturing enterprises that were investing heavily in R&D. Their developmental states had transformed themselves into champions of science and technology. By contrast, Argentina, Brazil and Mexico had experienced a wave of acquisitions and mergers that left even more of their leading enterprises controlled by multinational firms. The developmental states of Mexico and Turkey had become hand-tied by membership in NAFTA and the European Union. Which model of late industrialization will prevail, the "independent" or the "integrationist," is a question that challenges the twenty-first century.