The financial crises across Asia in 1997-98 ignited fierce debate about domestic economic weaknesses and flaws in the international financial system. Some analysts blamed Asian governments for inadequate prudential supervision, widespread failures of corporate governance and even "crony capitalism." Others assailed the inherent instability of global financial markets and what they considered to be hasty and ill-conceived liberalization taken at the behest of western-dominated international financial institutions. In this volume a distinguished group of political scientists, economists, and...

As one Asian economic crisis follows another, sending shock waves through the global market, questions about the making and conduct of industrial policy in the East take on a special urgency. Observers are sharply divided as to whether the ubiquitous attempts at cooperation among competing firms in Asia have been a key to competitiveness or a corrosive form of collusion. This timely book offers a close look at the impact of industrial policies on collective action in East Asia in Japan and Taiwan and, more briefly, in South Korea. Systematically comparative and based on interviews and...