Betting on Biotech: Innovation and the Limits of Asia's Developmental State

摘要

In the great academic debates about the political economy of development, we sometimes forget that the "state conditions" surrounding an economy can change markedly and that responses to these changes can determine the success or failure of a given economic model. Some of the better literature on East Asian developmental states has emphasized the importance of the timing of these responses for the successes we have witnessed, but, in general, this literature has been focused on phases of economic development characterized by technological catch-up. Less has been said about moving beyond catch-up, i.e., what do the successful East Asian developmental states do - in terms of technology policy - "for an encore?" For Joseph Wong, the answer to this question is that they "bet on biotech." But he finds that in so doing they discover that the institutions of the political economy which served them so well during the catch-up phase are now sorely wanting.