ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the influence of Friedrich List on development economics and on trade policy in three Asian countries. It is our intent to analyze the sequential growth experiences of three countries in East Asia, namely, Japan, South Korea and China, and to study documents that may show how List’s ideas have influenced people in academia as well as in politics in those countries. Two countries that were characterized by a rather backward agrarian society at the beginning of the nineteenth century and that were able to transform into an advanced industrial power before World War I were the United States and Germany. Friedrich List had learned from experiences in Germany as well as in America and was convinced that state intervention and protectionism is needed at least during the early stages of economic development. Neo-Schumpeterian economics and the national systems of innovation paradigm have received wide-spread attention in all three countries in Asia.
