Abstract

This paper investigates the institutional determinants of the industrialization processes that have characterized non-Western economies in the 20th century. By comparing the different approaches followed by East Asian, Latin American and Former Communist countries to acquire and build endogenously productive knowledge, we document their commonalities as well as their distinct features. We show in particular that they all embraced infant industry protection policies and adopted a pervasive public control of their strategic industries. However, the Asian experience also highlights the importance of conditional, selective and export-oriented policies in sustaining successfully the emergence of new industrial powers in the pre-globalization era.