Centennial Honors College
Western Illinois University
Undergraduate Research Day 2012
Podium Presentation
Is Free Trade Optimal for Developing Economies? A Three-Stage Model in
Northeast Asian Economic Development
Joshua Wood
Faculty Mentor: Thomas Sadler
Economics and Decision Sciences
Over the twentieth century, politicians and economists touted free trade as the
essential model for global prosperity. The world’s fastest-developing economies,
particularly over the last few decades in Northeast Asia, have demonstrated the
contrary. By adopting policies of government-controlled market economies, East Asian
countries have been able to develop rapidly at a pace unprecedented in the modern
world. Economists, political scientists, and experts across a wide variety of disciplines
have sought for decades to unravel the mystery of the so-called “East Asian miracle.”
By focusing on three major players, or “tigers” in the parlance of scholars, in the region’s
political economy—China, Japan, and South Korea—we will synthesize overarching
patterns in an attempt to establish a model for East Asian economic development. I
argue that the historical developmental pattern can be divided into three stages:
intervention, authoritarianism, and liberalization. In short, as these countries develop,
they gradually integrate into the global economic infrastructure and adopt international
norms of free trade. In developing this model, I hope to debunk the myth of the East
Asian “miracle” by establishing a logical basis for this development.