Do poor countries need a new development strategy?

Back in the 1990s and 2000s, the debate over development had pretty clear battle lines. On one hand you had the neoliberals, who thought that free trade, low regulation, prudent macroeconomics, and good health care and education were pretty much all you needed. On the other hand you had the industrialists, who thought that the key was to emulate South Korea, and pursue an industrial policy oriented around exporting manufactured goods. The latter camp was smaller, and included folks like Alice Amsden, Ha-Joon Chang, and Joe Studwell. Interestingly, China’s rapid industrialization didn’t really settle the argument — its early successes were mostly due to neoliberal reforms, but it rolled out a bunch of industrial policies starting in the late 2000s. It’s still an open question as to how important — and how reliable, and how easy — export-oriented industrial policies are. Personally, I think the industrialists are on to something, and in 2021-22 I wrote a series of posts looking at variou

Back in the 1990s and 2000s, the debate over development had pretty clear battle lines. On one hand you had the neoliberals, who thought that free trade, low regulation, prudent macroeconomics, and good health care and education were pretty much all you needed. On the other hand you had the industrialists, who thought that the key was to emulate South Korea, and pursue an industrial policy oriented around exporting manufactured goods. The latter camp was smaller, and included folks like Alice Amsden, Ha-Joon Chang, and Joe Studwell. Interestingly, China’s rapid industrialization didn’t really