How Asia Works author Joe Studwell on industrial policy lessons for the U.S., state capacity, and corporate culture

By Connor O’Brien

Since its publication in 2013, Joe Studwell’s, How Asia Works has quickly become one of the most influential books written about industrial policy in the 21st century. Studwell compares rapid economic growth and industrialization in Northeast Asia (Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan) with failed industrialization schemes in its neighbors to the south (Indonesia, Thailand, Malaysia, and the Philippines). 

In just a few decades, Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan not only grew into wealthy modern economies but did so while often rejecting orthodox free-market recommendations…