ABSTRACT
Asian experts come in two varieties: those whose expertise is principally based on academic credentials, and those whose expertise is principally based on experience. Although productive combinations of the two sometimes occur, each variety tends to be profoundly skeptical of the other. The nub of the Asian idea of public policy is that governments should not do much to temper the hazards of life, particularly the often harsh consequences of fast technological and economic change. Asia's governments have tended to offer little social protection, such as pay-as-you-go pensions, unemployment insurance, or state-provided health care. Conversely, Asian governments devote proportionally more of their more modest spending to investment, especially in education. Although Asia's governments have been pro-business as well as small— meaning they leave much economic decisionmaking to the competitive interplay in marketplaces—these governments have in general been as reluctant to safeguard individual companies as they have been to protect individual people.
