inostrani kapital kao faktor razvoja zemalja - Ekonomski fakultet u ...

logically correct, the sequence just described was not confirmed by historical
observation 17 . The fastest growing economies did in fact have very intrusive
Developmental States, who ‘shaped’ the market and created deep rooted
institutions to promote a much faster growth. What happened in reality, and
confirmed by the World Bank itself, is that, at the dawn of industrialization - which
took place at different times in each country under scrutiny - first came a ‘certain’
redistribution of income. This allowed all economies, but especially the fastest and
oldest growing economies – Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan – to develop a State
that would exchange less income inequality with more bureaucratic leadership. A
competent and accountable bureaucracy 18 would thus introduce selective policies
that did distort price considerably, by promoting investments and discouraging
consumption. But far from letting the resulting ‘export-led growth’ benefit the
economy, by a domestic use of all the foreign money thus acquired, the process of
relative price distortion went on for at least 3-4 decades. All along this time, there
was a very slow improving in the ‘better allocation of resources’ that the World
Bank sees at the core of the functions of growth. Besides, as payments for excess
exports were mostly employed in FDI in neighboring countries and overseas,
inflation was kept at bay, and only a mild up-ward pressure was exercised on the
rate of exchange. No wonder that each economy did show good macroeconomic
fundamentals and a good market performance (on the surface) as a result of such a
set of policies and sequencing. But what really happened was a very careful
‘market management’ from a very long-sighted ruling class, who was inspired by
the rules of a ‘New Competition’ (Best, 1991).
The financial crisis of 1997, which turned the miracle into a nightmare, was
later attributed to the same price distortions that the World Bank considered so
negligible a few years earlier. But this time, wrong economic policies were also to
blame. The crisis outbreak, which took place a few years after capital
liberalization, seemed to confirm the Developmental State approach for industrial
performance. Once freed from bureaucratic ‘interference’ and credit rationing, a
well organized industrial structure soon became thirsty of foreign capital and eager
to enter into speculative ventures (especially in real estates). Left alone with
macro-economic unsound policies (i.e. for Thailand, an unrealistic defense of the
currency peg) former ‘miracle’ countries were thus exposed to over-investment.
and sudden capital reversal 19 .
17
See Tiberi Vipraio (1999), Chapter VI, for a discussion.
18
Albeit not free from corruption. But the World Bank assumes that the more competent and
accountable is a bureaucracy, the less prone it is to corruptions. In any case, the ‘transaction cost’
of corruption, should be compared to the ‘transaction cost’ of inaction or incompetence from an
otherwise honest bureaucracy. See Tiberi Vipraio, 1999, for a discussion.
19
Yet foreign capital could enjoy generous bail-out from international institutions like the IMF, and
continue operating under the suspect of a deep moral-hazard situation (Tiberi Vipraio, 2000).
30