China [chapter]

Justin Yifu Lin, Jun Zhang
2019 How Nations Learn  
China is one of a handful of economies that has successfully achieved rapid long-term growth since the Second World War and is one of the fastest technological learners among latecomers. Its technological progress and economic success is attributable to the grand transformation of its development strategy since 1978. With special economic zones and encouraging inflow of foreign direct investment, China created conditions to help comparative advantage-following industries to grow and integrate
more » ... th the global supply chain, paving the way for institutional reform and turning a relatively closed economy into a global manufacturing powerhouse. The catching-up strategy proposed by development economics to latecomers fails to take into account the evolutionary nature of industrial structure and downplays the role of initial factor endowments. The New Structural Economics advocated by Justin Yifu Lin underscores the importance of comparative advantage and learning, linking endowment structure and rapid economic growth. Late latecomers following the NSE approach and accumulating physical and human capital through learning are most likely to achieve rapid development and to upgrade from imitation to innovation.
doi:10.1093/oso/9780198841760.003.0008 fatcat:viit73qbcjgmva5rx5yigjl2vu