Diffusion of Catching-up Industrialization Strategies: The Dynamics of East Asia's Policy Learning Process

Abstract This paper provides an overview of catch-up industrialization strategies in East Asia over the past few decades, articulating a theoretical-conceptual change from Akamatsu's Flying Geese Model to a leapfrogging and path-creating catching-up model. Within this intellectual context, this study explores the economic, political and institutional conditions for effective implementation of catch-up strategies (management of state-created learning rents) in South Korea, Taiwan and Malaysia. It proposes a new analytical grid that summarizes the current research on China's catch-up industrialization, explicitly acknowledging China's arguably unique multi-pronged mixed-mode model. The strategic models discussed in this paper may provide policy lessons for other developing economies in Asia aspiring to follow the path of technology upgrading.