Tiger Economies Under Threat : AComparative Analysis of Malaysia's Industrial Prospectsand Policy Options

Yusuf, Shahid ; Nabeshima, Kaoru

World Bank

关键词: ACCOUNTING;    AGRICULTURE;    ANIMATION;    ATTRIBUTES;    AUTOMOBILE;   

DOI  :  10.1596/978-0-8213-7880-9
RP-ID  :  51278

学科分类：社会科学、人文和艺术（综合）

来源: World Bank Open Knowledge Repository

【 摘 要 】

The Southeast Asian Tigers feelthreatened. Even though their growth rates have remainedabove the average for the world and also above the averagefor developing countries, their economic performance fallsshort of that in the first half of the 1990s. The underlyingworry is that it presages the beginning of a downward trend,the harbingers of which are lower rates of investment,persistently low rates of total factor productivity, and lowlevels of innovativeness. The Southeast Asian Tigers'worries motivate three questions, which this book attemptsto answer. First, are the Tigers rightly threatened by acreeping economic sclerosis or what some observers arecalling the middle-income trap? Second, if the threat isreal, what are the underlying causes? Third, are there waysof neutralizing the problems and at least maintaining if notraising the growth rates of the recent past? This book willrespond to these questions by means of a comparativeanalysis of the Tiger economies that is centered onMalaysia. This analysis draws on a comprehensive set oftechniques and indicators to assess competitive pressures,to gauge industrial and technological capabilities, and toindicate some of the directions industrial change inSoutheast Asia could take. Thus, the book seeks not only toview industrial evolution in the region from a comparativeperspective taking account also of what is happening and hashappened in other parts of East Asia but also to illuminatethis ongoing and uncertain process using some of the latestempirical techniques devised for this purpose. The balanceof this chapter provides the developmental and internationalcontexts with reference to which these questions will beaddressed. It explains the book's preferred angles totackling them. The chapter also outlines the contents of thevolume and foreshadows the principal findings and conclusions.