Introduction: Varieties and Alternatives of Catching Up: Asian Development in the Context of the Twenty-First Century

This introductory chapter offers an overview of this volume, including a literature review on catch-up industrialization and a summary of the nine chapters. It clarifies that the ultimate objective of the volume is to reconsider the theory of catch-up industrialization by examining various industries in Asia, especially changes in their development patterns over the last two decades. To this end, three tasks are identified for the volume: the first is to closely examine the latter stages of the catching-up process; the second is to analyze the relationships between catch-up industrialization and other development mechanisms, particularly linkage effects; and the third is to highlight other newly emerging mechanisms besides catch-up industrialization that make a significant contribution to development in some latecomer countries.