ABSTRACT
Since the early 1970s, I have made many research trips to different Asian countries, including Korea and Hong Kong, which lie at the center of Asia-Pacific economic dynamism, ASEAN countries which are catching up with the center, and India, Burma, and Laos which at present remain on the border or outside of this regional dynamism. Through these research excursions, I have come to believe very strongly that active contacts with foreign economies through trade and investment and guarantee of freedom in domestic economic activity are the prerequisites for economic development. At the same time, however, I began to question with equally strong conviction the validity of the view that a country can advance along a long-term development path only if government policies are appropriate. This simple optimism is what neoclassical development economics, as the predominant development doctrine of our time, seems to imply.
