How many models of Japanese growth do we want or need?

INTRODUCTION: WHAT KIND OF MODEL? High growth rates in Japan in the 1955-73 period, the subsequent rapid development of Korea, Taiwan, Singapore and Hong Kong, and then of Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia and China, have unleashed a deluge of inquiry, speculation and argument on the Asian development phenomenon. There is keen interest among policy-makers and within academic circles to extract “lessons” or to build “models” based on these experiences for possible use in the rest of the developing world. A crucial question is whether the East Asian experience can be reduced to a universal model.