ABSTRACT
This chapter addresses the queries by focusing on two of author's own cross-regional projects, which deal with development strategies and commodity chains. It argues that diverse comparative research methods are appropriate, and indeed necessary, to improve the understanding of development strategies in East Asia and Latin America. East Asia and Latin America have become the focal point of comparative thinking about development strategies in the Third World. Neoclassical economists and prominent international financial institutions, such as the World Bank and International Monetary Fund touted Export-oriented industrialization as a successful development paradigm to be emulated by the rest of Third World. Individualizing comparisons within regions can even be used to generate novel insights about cross-regional similarities. Both inward-oriented and outward-oriented development strategies have proven capable of spawning high-growth economies in distinct regions of the world. Burgeoning investments from Japan and the East Asian Newly industrializing countries in North America are leading to a deepening of multilateral ties between the two regions.
