What African Industrial Development Can Learn from East Asian Successes : The Role of Complexity and Economic Fitness

The path to becoming an advanced economy can be a difficult one that is fraught with obstacles, traps, and frequent reversals. Yet in the past half century several East Asian nations have completed the journey by increasing their ‘economic fitness’...

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Main Authors: Lin, Justin, Cader, Masud, Pietronero, Luciano
Format: Brief
Language:English
Published: International Finance Corporation, Washington, DC 2020
Subjects:
Online Access:http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/594721606369837976/What-African-Industrial-Development-Can-Learn-from-East-Asian-Successes-The-Role-of-Complexity-and-Economic-Fitness
http://hdl.handle.net/10986/34852
id okr-10986-34852
recordtype oai_dc
spelling okr-10986-348522021-04-23T14:02:10Z What African Industrial Development Can Learn from East Asian Successes : The Role of Complexity and Economic Fitness Lin, Justin Cader, Masud Pietronero, Luciano EMERGING MARKET ECONOMIES INDUSTRIAL DEVELOPMENT COMPARATIVE ADVANTAGE DIVERSIFICATION ECONOMIC FITNESS PRODUCTIVITY GROWTH POVERTY TRAP INDUSTRIALIZATION CUT FLOWERS EXPORT COMPETITIVENESS VALUE CHAIN The path to becoming an advanced economy can be a difficult one that is fraught with obstacles, traps, and frequent reversals. Yet in the past half century several East Asian nations have completed the journey by increasing their ‘economic fitness’, implementing structural changes and leveraging their comparative advantages. Complexity and Economic Fitness is a methodology that measures the stage of an economy’s development and suggests feasible upgrades to more sophisticated production and diversity, which can lead to greater global competitiveness. This note highlights the East Asian lessons that African nations, and Ethiopia in particular, are putting to use. These include focusing on competitiveness in select industries, acquiring know-how from global leaders, seeking foreign partners and investment, and developing a national strategy to create the industries of the future. The application of these lessons is also of interest to private investors, as it can allow them to identify the economies utilizing Economic Fitness analyses and thus offer opportunities for growth and investment. 2020-12-02T14:55:20Z 2020-12-02T14:55:20Z 2020-08 Brief http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/594721606369837976/What-African-Industrial-Development-Can-Learn-from-East-Asian-Successes-The-Role-of-Complexity-and-Economic-Fitness http://hdl.handle.net/10986/34852 English EMCompass;Note 88 CC BY-NC-ND 3.0 IGO http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/igo International Finance Corporation International Finance Corporation, Washington, DC Publications & Research Publications & Research :: Brief Africa Africa Eastern and Southern (AFE) East Asia and Pacific Ethiopia Kenya
repository_type Digital Repository
institution_category Foreign Institution
institution Digital Repositories
building World Bank Open Knowledge Repository
collection World Bank
language English
topic EMERGING MARKET ECONOMIES
INDUSTRIAL DEVELOPMENT
COMPARATIVE ADVANTAGE
DIVERSIFICATION
ECONOMIC FITNESS
PRODUCTIVITY GROWTH
POVERTY TRAP
INDUSTRIALIZATION
CUT FLOWERS
EXPORT COMPETITIVENESS
VALUE CHAIN
spellingShingle EMERGING MARKET ECONOMIES
INDUSTRIAL DEVELOPMENT
COMPARATIVE ADVANTAGE
DIVERSIFICATION
ECONOMIC FITNESS
PRODUCTIVITY GROWTH
POVERTY TRAP
INDUSTRIALIZATION
CUT FLOWERS
EXPORT COMPETITIVENESS
VALUE CHAIN
Lin, Justin
Cader, Masud
Pietronero, Luciano
What African Industrial Development Can Learn from East Asian Successes : The Role of Complexity and Economic Fitness
geographic_facet Africa
Africa Eastern and Southern (AFE)
East Asia and Pacific
Ethiopia
Kenya
relation EMCompass;Note 88
description The path to becoming an advanced economy can be a difficult one that is fraught with obstacles, traps, and frequent reversals. Yet in the past half century several East Asian nations have completed the journey by increasing their ‘economic fitness’, implementing structural changes and leveraging their comparative advantages. Complexity and Economic Fitness is a methodology that measures the stage of an economy’s development and suggests feasible upgrades to more sophisticated production and diversity, which can lead to greater global competitiveness. This note highlights the East Asian lessons that African nations, and Ethiopia in particular, are putting to use. These include focusing on competitiveness in select industries, acquiring know-how from global leaders, seeking foreign partners and investment, and developing a national strategy to create the industries of the future. The application of these lessons is also of interest to private investors, as it can allow them to identify the economies utilizing Economic Fitness analyses and thus offer opportunities for growth and investment.
format Brief
author Lin, Justin
Cader, Masud
Pietronero, Luciano
author_facet Lin, Justin
Cader, Masud
Pietronero, Luciano
author_sort Lin, Justin
title What African Industrial Development Can Learn from East Asian Successes : The Role of Complexity and Economic Fitness
title_short What African Industrial Development Can Learn from East Asian Successes : The Role of Complexity and Economic Fitness
title_full What African Industrial Development Can Learn from East Asian Successes : The Role of Complexity and Economic Fitness
title_fullStr What African Industrial Development Can Learn from East Asian Successes : The Role of Complexity and Economic Fitness
title_full_unstemmed What African Industrial Development Can Learn from East Asian Successes : The Role of Complexity and Economic Fitness
title_sort what african industrial development can learn from east asian successes : the role of complexity and economic fitness
publisher International Finance Corporation, Washington, DC
publishDate 2020
url http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/594721606369837976/What-African-Industrial-Development-Can-Learn-from-East-Asian-Successes-The-Role-of-Complexity-and-Economic-Fitness
http://hdl.handle.net/10986/34852
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