Radical Economic Transformation: Lessons from the East Asian Tigers

Radical economic transformation has become a populist slogan, but what would it truly involve if implemented? The most successful case of radical economic transformation is found in the East Asian Tiger economies – countries such as South Korea, Singapore, Hong Kong and Taiwan. After the Second World War, they were even poorer than African countries today, but within a generation they become some of the world’s most dynamic economies.

The East Asian Tigers unleashed a manufacturing revolutio...