Can it be an advantage to be backward? Alexander Gerschenkron developed a model of economic development in which relatively less-developed countries were at an advantage. State interventions could systematically compensate for inadequate supplies of capital, skilled labour, entrepreneurship and technology found in the more advanced. This text examines the relevance of this hypothesis to two of the most spectacularly successful economies of East Asia, Japan and South Korea. Combining insights from economic history, development economics and the economics of technology, the book emphasizes the...