ABSTRACT
Post-1949 industrialization in Asia was not achieved without cost, despite raising the living standards of millions in a relatively short period. In Section 1.1 we cited a seminal report that declared Asia's growth performance to be an economic miracle for being notably rapid without widening disparities in income (World Bank 1993), but this unusual cocktail became diluted after the 1997 financial crisis. In the following decade incomes became progressively less evenly distributed as the same time as a general recovery in growth. This may have no single explanation, but we want to consider whether global financialization and rising financial asset prices were important in the change.
