Papers from a conference held December 1989 at Tufts University discuss a variety of issues connected with Taiwan--political reform and development, political economy, social and environmental issues, external relations, and the future of Taiwan-PRC relations. The time between the conference and publication of these proceedings yielded a substantial introduction and uniform typesetting. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

As capitalism defeated socialism in Eastern Europe, the market displaced the state in the developing world. In Beyond the Miracle of the Market, first published in 2005, Bates focuses on Kenya, a country that continued to grow while others declined in Africa, and mounts a prescient critique of the neo-classical turn in development economics. Attributing Kenya's exceptionalism to its economic institutions, this book pioneers the use of 'new institutionalism' in the field of development. In doing so, however, the author accuses the approach of being apolitical. Institutions introduce power into economic life. To account for their impact, economic analysis must therefore be complemented by political analysis; micro-economics must be imbedded in political science. In making this argument, Bates relates Kenya's subsequent economic decline to the change from the Kenyatta to the Moi regime and the subsequent use of the power of economic institutions to redistribute rather than to create wealth.

Korea, one of the original 'Tiger Economies', experiences a traumatic and largely unanticipated economic crisis in 1997-98 from which the country is still recovering. Despite having achieved spectacular economic advances from the early 1960s, the crisis laid bare numerous structural, economic and policy weaknesses. Charles Harvie and Hyun-Hoon Lee chronicle and analyze the key factors behind Korea's economic miracle from 1962-1989 and the causes that contributed to the economic downturn and ensuing crisis of 1997-98. Is the Korean economy still fading or is its revival underway? As the country undertakes a series of recovery measures, the authors consider the importance of the ongoing restructuring efforts in the corporate and banking sectors, the development of the 'new economy; and the potential economic advantages to be derived from reunification with the North.

Achieving economic growth is one of today's key challenges. In this groundbreaking book, Michael Best argues that to understand how successful growth happens we need an economic framework that focuses on production, governance, and skills. This production-centric framework is the culmination of three simultaneous journeys. The first has been Best's visits to hundreds of factories worldwide, starting early as the son of a labor organiser and continuing through his work as an academic and industrial consultant. The second is a survey of two hundred years of economic thought from Babbage to Krugman, with stops along the way for Marx, Marshall, Young, Penrose, Richardson, Schumpeter, Kuznets, Abramovitz, Keynes, and Jacobs. The third is a tour of historical episodes of successful and failed transformations, focusing sharply on three core elements -- the production system, business organisation, and skill formation -- and their interconnections. Best makes the case that government should create the institutional infrastructures needed to support these elements and their interconnections rather than subsidise individual enterprises.

There has been no miracle, says Zhu at least in the sense of divine intervention. He attributes the rapid economic growth in East Asia to decades of hard work by people in the region, though admittedly aided somewhat by favorable international and domestic conditions, sound government policies, and a few far-sighted leaders. He begins by profiling countries in the order they emerged into the world spotlight: Japan, South Korea, China and Taiwan. Then he compares their economies, concludes with a comprehensive explanation for the overall phenomenon and its internal variations.

Through an examination of election campaign propaganda and various public relations campaigns, reflecting new electioneering techniques borrowed from the United States, this work explores how conservative political and economic groups sought to construct and sell a political meaning of the Social Market Economy and the Economic Miracle in West Germany during the 1950s.The political meaning of economics contributed to conservative electoral success, constructed a new belief in the free market economy within West German society, and provided legitimacy and political stability for the new Federal Republic of Germany.

In the new edition of this important contribution to understanding both the Asian economic miracle and the 1997-8 crisis, Richard Stubbs assesses the main explanations to date and updates the analysis to take account of globalization and the remarkable economic rise of China.