Development in East Asia and Latin America

East Asia was seen generally as the Third World's economic model and powerhouse. Countries like South Korea, not so long ago among the world's poorest, were seen as making rapid strides towards First World status, following more or less in the wake of Japan, itself a once-poor country that was by the 1980s a leading, modern industrial and post-industrial power. The phrase Newly Industrialized Countries" (NICs) was coined to characterize the development level of the rapidly growing East Asian economies; more colorfully they were refered to as "Asian Tigers."

In contrast, Latin America was seen as a region whose countries, though in global terms far from the poorest of the poor, were not quite able to make the transition to NIC status. Though several had rapidly growing middle classes and modern sectors, taken as a group they were seen as characterized by extremes of wealth and poverty, and consequent social instability.

It was no surprise that, in the 1980s, Latin America was the intellectual home of dependency theory (Stallings, 1992

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our times greater than their annual exports, as did the Philippines, while South Korea and Indonesia had debt levels of less than twice their annual exports. The last two countries were thus in rather good shape--and did not require debt restructuring--whereas the Philippines, along with Turkey, a country in neither region, were in intermediate condition. All the Latin American countries were in poor shape, with stagnant growth, high inflation, heavy debt burdens, and were in need of debt restructuring. East Asia and Latin America were also characterized by broadly different development strategies. In the 1970s, rightist-oriented regimes in most of Latin America had adopted neoclassical models of development, reducing bars to foreign investment and reducing regulation of both foreign and domestic business interests--often at considerable cost in social tension. East Asian governments also tended to be rightist and authoritarian in political coloration, but their economic strategies were far from neoclassical. By the end of the 1970s, the economic success of the major East Asian newly industrialized countries (NICs), Korea and Taiwan, was increasingly interpreted as depending on the active involvement of the stat
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Some common words found in the essay are:
Latin America, South Korea, Latin American, East Asia, Paul Krugman, America IMF, East Asian, Third World, Princeton University, Latin America--defined, latin america, east asia, south korea, latin american, east asian, asia latin america, asia latin, latin american countries, east asia latin, american countries, adjustment princeton, university pp, experience east asia, princeton university pp, evans 1992,
Approximate Word count = 1480
Approximate Pages = 6 (250 words per page)

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