ABSTRACT
Since the end of World War II, Pacifi c Asia, the part of Asia on the west coast of the Pacifi c Ocean, has been home to the world’s most dynamic region of economic growth and social transformation. Inspired by Japan, the region’s fi rst industrial nation, and helped by its fi nancial and technological support, a number of high-performing economies have emerged in the area over the decades. These include the now newly industrialised countries (NICs) of South Korea, Taiwan and Singapore and the three Southeast Asian countries on the verge of ‘NIC-dom’, namely, Malaysia, Indonesia and Thailand. These high-performing Asian economies (HPAEs), as the World Bank (1993) describes them, are the only post-war economies that have combined high growth rates with declining income inequality to a greater or lesser degree. Shared growth, according to the World Bank, has greatly improved human welfare. Between 1960 and 1990, the period of rapid growth, life expectancy in the HPAEs increased from 56 years to 71 years, and the proportion of people living in absolute poverty decreased from 58 per cent to 17 per cent.
