African countries are facing great opportunities but also formidable challenges in accelerating economic growth and sustaining a high level of economic performance. The experiences of East Asian countries may offer valuable insights for African leaders and governments in making concerted efforts...

Many international organizations, governments and academics concerned with economic development look to Asia's success, recommending that other poor countries follow similar models and paths of development. This study argues that such Asian 'lesson-making' is a grave mistake in policy-thinking -...

Since the 1990s, gender mainstreaming has been a widely accepted strategy for promoting gender equality within governments, multilateral agencies, and development NGOs, although critics continue to question its premises and results. This paper reviews how the development agencies of Australia,...

Gender gaps in labour force participation in developing countries persist despite income growth or structural change. We assess this persistence across economic geographies within countries, focusing on youth employment in off-farm wage jobs. We combine household survey data from 12 low- and...

This paper overviews the debate on the relationship between the measures of globalization, economic growth and pace of urbanization, and speculates on its impact on the quality of life and poverty in the context of Asian countries. After experiencing moderate to high urban growth for three to...

How have economic development, employment, and labour markets in Asian countries interacted since the publication of Myrdal's Asian Drama? Myrdal rejected, the western approach to and definition of employment and emphasized the role of "informal" employment, but he underestimated the effects of...

Using a comparative frame that draws on the variation of developmental trajectories in Asia from Northeast Asia to China to Southeast Asia and to India, this paper explores the changing role of the state in these countries and the contributions that the analysis of the Asian state has made to...

Industrial transformation of Asia arguably constitutes the most surprising and dramatic change in the global economy in the last fifty years. This paper provides an outline of some of the most important trends of this development and analyses selected national industrial policies that promoted...

This paper aims to depict the post-Second World War poverty and inequality trends in Asia, its sub-regions, and individual economies. Efforts are made to explain these trends and explore the interrelationship between growth, poverty, and inequality in Asia. Analytical results confirm significant...

This paper is a short history of the Indian economy since 1968. India today is a changed country from what it was half a century ago, when Myrdal published his Asian Drama. The stranglehold of low growth has been broken, its population below the poverty line has fallen markedly, and India has...