Development and Structural Change in Asia-Pacific

2	Global institutions and economic development
What have we learned?
Irma Adelman

Introduction

Economic development, as distinct from economic growth, combines: (1) self-sustaining growth; (2) structural change in patterns of production; (3) technological upgrading; (4) social, political and institutional modernisation; and (5) widespread improvement in the human condition. When ‘development’ is used in this sense, less than half a dozen countries, mostly East Asian, have travelled the whole path from underdeveloped to developed since World War Two. Others have progressed part-way. The semi-industrial countries have achieved substantial transformations of their patterns of production, and have gone part-way in increasing ...