Neo-Mercantilist or Enhanced Mobilization Strategies

In this chapter I examine what I call “enhanced mobilization” (EM) strategies for economic development. While this strategy has been relatively rarely practiced in the last century, in my view it has been the highest-performing strategy in terms of permitting a country to catch up with other countries that are more advanced. I use the term enhanced mobilization instead of two other names that may be more familiar, i.e., “export promotion” and “neo-mercantilism.” I prefer not to use these latter terms because the first term fails to fully capture the overall idea, and the second term carries some historic baggage that could be a distraction.