NEARLY as striking as Asia’s dynamism is how unevenly prosperity is spread—in contrast to Africa, Latin America or Europe. First-world Japan (with a GDP per person of $38,900) is in effect part of the same island chain as the Philippines ($2,950). Rich Singapore ($53,000) is little more than an hour’s flight from Myanmar ($1,275). On the Korean peninsula, the division is even starker. Two economies that started out in identical circumstances have diverged so wildly that South Koreans are between 3cm and 8cm taller than their North Korean counterparts on average, depending on their age, thanks to better nutrition.
A voluminous literature ponders the causes of the East Asian miracle, in which first Japan, then the four original “Asian tigers”—Hong Kong, Singapore, South Korea and Taiwan—and then China sustained bounding growth for decades. Most studies point to market-friendly policies that encouraged exports of manufactures and the rapid accumulation of capital, including the...Continue reading
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