WIDER Working Paper 2018/120 Industrial development in Asia Trends in industrialization and industrial policy experiences of developing Asia Ha-Joon Chang and Kiryl Zach* September 2018 Abstract: Industrial transformation of Asia arguably constitutes the most surprising and dramatic change in the global economy in the last fifty years. This paper provides an outline of some of the most important trends of this development and analyses selected national industrial policies that promoted structural transformation in developing Asia during the period. In the first part, we describe crucial dimensions of industrialization in the region—its extent, its historical trajectory, and the resulting industrial upgrading. In the second part, we use four case studies—of the Republic of Korea, Malaysia, China, and India—to describe some of the strategies which Asian economies used in order to induce industrial development. We argue that more successful cases did not try to implement a golden policy template but rather pragmatically adopted their policies to overcome specific bottlenecks and meet strategic objectives. Keywords: industrialization, industrial policy, structural transformation, development, case studies, developing Asia JEL classification: L16, L52, O14, O25 Acknowledgements: We thank Deepak Nayyar and the reviewers for their invaluable suggestions throughout the preparation of this paper. Earlier versions were presented in seminar at Central Institute for Economic Management (CIEM) in Hanoi, Vietnam. We also thank Rob Vos, Robert Wade, Kaushik Basu, Frances Stewart, Finn Tarp, Tony Addison, and other seminar participants for their insightful comments and suggestions. *Centre of Developing Studies, University of C ambridge, Cambridge, UK; corresponding author: Ha-Joon Chang, email:
[email protected].