Rethinking East Asia in the New Global Economy

Based on his recent book with Cornell University Press, Strategic Coupling, Prof. Yeung examines economic development and state-firm relations in East Asia, focusing on the region's emerging role in the new global economy. Much of the earlier social science literature on the political economy of industrial transformation has emphasized the role of the developmental state in picking selected domestic firms as “national champions” and in promoting their rapid growth through sectoral industrial policy. Drawing upon his empirical research on South Korea, Taiwan, and Singapore, he argued that production network-level dynamics and firm-specific initiatives are more critical to the successful industrial transformation of these East Asian economies in the contemporary era. This key mechanism of strategic coupling with global production networks offers a dynamic conception of state-firm relations in the changing context of global economic governance in East Asia.