Nrbwp201318

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© 2013 Nepal Rastra Bank

NRB Working Paper No. 18 October 2013

A Revisit of the East Asian Development Experiences in the Context of South Asia Prakash Kumar Shrestha, Ph.D.*

ABSTRACT This paper compares the level of economic development in South Asia and East Asia, and explores the features of East Asian Development experiences and existing situation in South Asia. Several development indicators such as per capita income, human development index and millennium development goals' indicators reveal that South Asia is far behind many East Asian countries where some distinctive features of the development process were followed in the past such as developmental role of the state, high savings and investment, emphasis on the manufacturing sector, export-led growth, focus on infrastructure and human capital as reflected in macroeconomic data. However, data show that South Asia lack these features. South Asia should follow these features to accelerate economic progress, including giving focus on productive use of remittance, and achieve an increasing return in service sectors considering changing circumstances. JEL Classification: O11, O57, H19, E20, F43 Keywords: South Asia, East Asia, Economic Development, East Asian Development Model

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INTRODUCTION

Some East Asian countries witnessed a great economic transformation with an increase in per capita income in the second half of the twentieth century (Maddison, 2000). Following Japan, which was the first non-western nation to reach the status of an industrialized country, several other East Asian countries have also achieved a similar economic success (Stark, 2010; Chang, 2007). Their success has attracted the attention of many policy makers and *

Deputy Manager, Nepal Rastra Bank, Nepalgunj. E-mail: shresthap@nrb.org.np.

The views expressed in this paper are personal and do not represent the affiliated institution. I would like to thank participants in the New York Conference on Asian Studies in September, 2012 organized by the State University of New York, New Paltz for helpful comments.

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