ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on factors that are shared by the six countries concerned, or that point in a common direction, without therefore neglecting the variety of experiences across these case studies. The importance of physical and social infrastructure is clearly seen in aiding industrialisation. India, China and Vietnam all have a large population living in rural areas and the poor state of infrastructure has hindered the flow of gains to the rural sector from the more resourceful urban sector. In the rapid industrialisation phase of Taiwan, competitive labour markets efficiently adjusted labour supply and demand, and without much intervention by the government, it served to minimise search costs. Informal capital markets exist, for instance, in Vietnam which transact in assets like land and buildings in providing enterprise capital. The low reliance on formal financial markets has contributed to higher transaction costs on the one hand and prevented large scale expansion opportunities for the small firm on the other.
