VoxDev 41d ago

Nancy Birdsall revisits the World Bank's landmark 1993 East Asian Miracle report, exploring how it navigated the politics of industrial policy, what it revealed about export-led manufacturing growth, and what its lessons mean for development policy today. In 1993, the World Bank published a report that would quietly challenge the dominant thinking of its era. The East Asian Miracle examined the remarkable post-war growth of economies across Northeast and Southeast Asia at a time when industrial policy was rarely taken seriously inside – or outside – the Bank. In this episode of VoxDevTalks, Nancy Birdsall revisits the report's origins, its careful navigation of ideological constraints, and what its findings might still offer policymakers today. Read the full show notes here: https://voxdev.org/topic/macroeconomics-growth/east-asian-miracle-revisited-industrial-policy-shared-prosperity-and