ABSTRACT
The role of the state in East Asian development has always been a controversial issue. On the one hand, neoclassical economists argued that three decades of extraordinary East Asian growth were largely the consequence of policies that let the market function and kept distortions to a minimum (Krueger 1995). On the other, critics of the neoclassical approach maintained that the close ties between industry and government and selective government interventions were critical to the extraordinary growth performance of many East Asian economies (Amsden 1989; Wade 1990).
