Lições do processo de desenvolvimento japonês: catch up completo e forging ahead bloqueado

The Japanese catch up between 1868 and 1974 holds important lessons for underdeveloped countries. This paper evaluates the Japanese experience including strategic and geopolitical considerations. Successful industrial policies implemented might have been shaped under the influence of those strategic considerations. The industrial policies described by Ohkawa and Kohama (1989) are integrated with the military mobilization of the 1930s and 1940s and with the Occupation policies (1945-1952). The institutional result is a new variety of capitalism that will feed the high growth era (1955-1974). Therefore a new challenge arises: how implement a catch up process in peace and democracy?