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The Economic Progress Of Latin America

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Richard Wong
Professor Sanjay Peters
EMPA U6560
April 14th 2015 Final Exam: Question 5 The unprecedented economic progress of a handful of East Asian economies were able to achieve in three decades, from1960’s to the 1980’s sparked the curiosity of the world as to how such an astounding feat occurred. After the Second World War, countries from both East Asia and Latin America began to industrialize and competed vigorously in the world market, however it is worthy to note that Latin American had several advantages from the very beginning. These include higher per capita income, higher level of industrialization, higher saving rates, higher education levels. Many of these East Asian countries/regions have just gained their independence (South Korea, Taiwan, Singapore, Malaysia, and Indonesia) and are recovering from war, in particular Japan and South Korea. Yet in the 1980’s East Asian economies developed at a much faster pace while economic growth in Latin America was stagnant and failed to live up to its potential. This paper will address the differences in economic strategies employed, explore why Latin America failed while East Asian economies achieved remarkable progress, and if there are any worthwhile lessons that current emerging economies can if possible emulate the kind of success achieved by newly industrialized countries (NICs).
Latin America failure and East Asian success There have been ongoing debates on the policymaking arena as to what

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