Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/101198 
Authors: 
Year of Publication: 
2011
Series/Report no.: 
ADBI Working Paper No. 340
Publisher: 
Asian Development Bank Institute (ADBI), Tokyo
Abstract: 
Based on the variable rate of gross domestic product per capita growth and its sources, this paper first identifies five phases of economic development that are common to China, Japan, and Korea: M (Malthusian), G (government-led), K (à la Kuznets), H (human capital based) and PD (post demographic-transition). But there are also marked differences in the onset, duration, and institutional forms of these phases across these economies. In order to understand these differences, this paper explores the agrarian origins of institutions in Qing China and Tokugawa Japan (and briefly Choson Korea) and their path-dependent transformations over those phases. In doing so, the paper employs game-theoretic reasoning and interpretations of divergent institutional evolution between China and Japan, which also clarifies the simplicity of prevailing arguments that identify East Asian developmental and institutional features with authoritarianism, collectivism, kinshipdominance, Confucianism and the like. Finally, the paper examines the relevance of the foregoing developmental discussions to the institutional agendas faced by the People's Republic of China (PRC) and Japan in their respective emergent phase-transitions. In what way can the PRC avoid the "middle income trap"? What institutional shortcomings become evident from the Fukushima catastrophe and how can they be overcome in an aging Japan?
Subjects: 
development phases
institutional evolution
agrarian origin
prc economy
middle income trap
post demographic transition
east asia
norm
JEL: 
J11
N15
N35
N55
O15
O43
O53
P51
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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