EAST ASIA'S ECONOMIC DYNAMISM : FALTERING OR SUSTAINING?

Abstract

The growth of East Asia has often been seen as a miracle. Over the last two decades it has achieved rapid and sustainable economic growth. Inequality has also been declining. Their economic performance was made possible through high savings and investment and a rapidly growing export sector. This academic exercise seeks to analyze if the East Asian miracle is still sustainable in the 1990s. It examines whether East Asia is still competitive enough to maintain and increase its market share in view of external structural changes like globalization and regionalization as well as competition from lower cost and emerging economies like China, India and Indochina. The strains arising from the tension between rapid growth and structural and institutional constraints are examined as well as the current Asian financial crisis. Finally, this academic exercise seeks contribute to an economic understanding of prospects for East Asia in the medium term and draws conclusions as to whether the much vaunted East Asia's economic dynamism is faltering or sustaining.