China is undergoing its long-awaited industrial revolution. There is no shortage of commentary and opinion on this dramatic period, but few have attempted to provide a coherent, in-depth, political economic framework that explains the fundamental mechanisms behind China's rapid...

This paper argues that the single most important factor that explains East Asia's development success was its fast structural transformation toward industrialization, manufacturing in particular. Workers moved out of agriculture into manufacturing, and the sector diversified and upgraded its...

This paper aims to redefine the term competitiveness to enhance its usefulness for the evaluation of country performance and for policy conclusions. We attempt to establish a definition that is adequate if economic policy strives for a new growth path that is more dynamic, socially inclusive and...

We discuss recent work evaluating the role of the government in shaping the economy during the long 19th century, a practice we refer to as industrial policy. We show that states deployed a vast variety of different policies aimed at, primarily, but not exclusively, fostering industrialization....