Yes / Purpose – The four Asian tigers, Hong Kong, Singapore, South Korea and Taiwan (also called Four
Dragons) experienced miraculous high growth rates in the pre-1990s period and rapidly transformed
their economic status from less developed “basket cases” to developed high-income countries gaining
entry to the rich OECD club of countries. These countries even in the post-1990s, barring few years,
have continued to grow further and are an inspiring role model for the newly emerging economies. The
purpose of this paper is to adduce certain trends in these countries since the 1990s and specifically
examine role of human capital and knowledge building, productivity convergence and intra-regional
trade in the Asian tigers’. The authors examine these in the context of India.
Design/methodology/approach – The paper in a simple descriptive yet analytical approach
explores the relevance of above factors in the Indian context.
Findings – The study observed that India ranks far below the Asian tigers in the knowledge economy
index (KEI). The results at the sub-national level showed large disparities across the states in
knowledge economy reflecting country’s difficulties in catching up with other countries overall.
Regarding labour productivity, the results show that India was moving away from the benchmark
country until 1990 ( pre-reform period) and started catching up particularly due to physical capital (not
necessarily human capital) since 1995 onwards.
Originality/value – The study is unique due to several reasons. First, it contributes to the literature
examining contemporaneous Asian tigers and Indian economies performance as not many studies
exist in this area. Second, the study also builds a unique first ever KEI at the sub-national level for
India and is, therefore, a contribution in this respect. Finally, the study also contributes to the literature
on Indian economic development.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:BRADFORD/oai:bradscholars.brad.ac.uk:10454/8496 |
| Date | 05 February 2014 |
| Creators | Arora, Rashmi, Ratnasiri, S. |
| Source Sets | Bradford Scholars |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Article, final draft paper |
| Rights | This article is © Emerald Group Publishing and permission has been granted for this version to appear here: https://bradscholars.brad.ac.uk. Emerald does not grant permission for this article to be further copied/distributed or hosted elsewhere without the express permission from Emerald Group Publishing Limited. |
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