Recent work has documented industrial output growth around the poor periphery from 1870 to the present, finding unconditional convergence on the leaders long before the modern BRICS and even before the Asian Tigers. The Philippines was very much part of that catching up. In the decade or so up...

"This paper documents industrial output and labor productivity growth around the poor periphery 1870-1975 (Latin America, the European periphery, the Middle East, South Asia, Southeast Asia and East Asia). Intensive and extensive industrial growth accelerated there over this critical century....