How Asia Works: Success and Failure in the World's Most Dynamic Region (Joe Studwell 2013)

For me, How Asia Works was like reading Good to Great of East Asian Economies. A fascinating, historical and educational insight into what government policies brought vast economic improvement to East Asia.

Agriculture, Manufacturing and Finance (mainly credit/bank lending) are the three industries that governments needed to get right in order to raise the quality of life for the region's billions.

The Author explains how East Asian Countries adopted policy initiatives from the West and further developed these to form their own policies in these three key industries.

Studwell then investigates those policies that delivered for Japan, Taiwan, South Korea and China and in contrast, how Thailand, Philippines, Malaysia and Indonesia ultimately failed to develop, or successfully implement, their own policies.

The historical narrative walks you through time and regions to provide helpful and enjoyable context for the region’s successes and failures.

This book greatly advanced my appreciation for:

• diffusion of knowledge and how it spreads prosperity across the world
• the role governments can play in determining the destiny of their nations
• there is no ‘one way’ to run a nation and that policies prescribed by western developed world institutions are often not appropriate for underdeveloped and developing nations.

The section on Government banking policy showed parallel's with the issues we are facing here in Australia (where banks endlessly loan against property which provides them with enough profits to negate the need for business lending - which crimps economic growth and can lead to bubbles).

A great read.