1/Alright, let's talk about Southeast Asia! One of the most interesting stories in the world that tons of people are

2/When most people think about economic development, they think of China. But Southeast Asia is coming up!

Already Singapore is super-rich, Malaysia is on the cusp of being a developed country, and Thailand isn't too far behind!
3/But the really encouraging sign is how nearly every poor country in the region is now growing steadily and exponentially.

The star performer, of course, is Vietnam, where incomes have almost quintupled since 1990.
4/And watch out, here come Indonesia and the Philippines!
5/And you know what? It's not technically in Southeast Asia, but it's really close, and its economic situation looks very similar, so let's include Bangladesh!
6/Myanmar, Laos, and Cambodia are all growing rapidly as well.

Pretty much ALL of Southeast Asia is growing rapidly.

What's going on? What is the region getting right??
7/The simple answer is: Export-oriented manufacturing.

All of these countries have a lot of manufacturing exports, usually of labor-intensive goods like clothing. Even Indonesia, whose industrialization took a big hit after the 1997 crisis.
8/As China becomes more expensive, companies are looking for cheaper places to make things, and retailers are looking for cheaper places to buy things.

Southeast Asia (+Bangladesh) is fulfilling much of that demand.
9/But what policies did the Southeast Asian countries do in order to hop on the manufacturing export train?

They did a lot of different things...but maybe in the end the most important factor was that they were in the right place at the right time.
10/Southeast Asian countries are close to China, where the supply chains are trying to relocate out of.

They have cheap wages.

And they have huge nearby sources of investment -- Japan, Taiwan, South Korea, and Singapore, with whom Southeast Asian countries have close ties.
11/So what does this imply for other regions -- particularly Africa -- that need to develop and industrialize?

"Be in the right place at the right time" is pretty useless advice...
12/What Africa really needs is a "seed" of development. One or two countries that get rich before the others, like Japan and Singapore did in Asia.

Those early leaders can then be sources of inspiration, ideas, expertise, capital, and market demand for all the others.
13/Perhaps Ghana could be one seed of African development?

https://t.co/f5ydiLgpDv
14/Anyway, the amazing growth of Southeast Asia is a testament to the success of decolonization and of globalization.

It's one more big step toward making the entire human race materially comfortable and secure.

(end)

https://t.co/cqXNjLxxHJ

More from Noah Smith 🐇

This thread demonstrates that a lot of academic writing that *looks* like utter nonsense is merely scholars dressing up a useful but mundane point with a ton of unnecessary jargon.


My theory is that the jargon creates an artificial barrier to entry. https://t.co/MqLyyppdHl

If one must spend years marinating one's brain in jargon to be perceived as an expert on a topic, it protects the status and earning power of people who study relatively easy topics.

In econ, a similar thing is accomplished by what recent Nobel prize winner Paul Romer calls "mathiness": https://t.co/DBCRRc8Mir

But mathiness and jargon are not quite the same...

Jargon usually doesn't force you to change the substance of your central point.

Mathiness often does. By forcing you to write your model in a way that's mathematically tractable (easy to work with), mathiness often impoverishes your understanding of how the world really works.

has written about this problem:

More from World

Niger state shares borders with Zamfara, kebbi, Kaduna & Benin Republic. Terrorists from Niger republic and Burkina faso easily move money and arms across the borders of Kebbi, Zamfara and Benin R into Niger state. According to UN over 900,000 people have been displaced in B'Faso https://t.co/65YEMJhqDp


Niger, Mali and Burkina faso are weak countries populated by Shell terrorists who have now found a safe haven in the forests in Kaduna and Niger state. Birin Gwari, Mokwa forest, Nanati forests, Kanji lake areas.

No decent human resides permanently in forests.

We are facing both external and internal threats from these weak and failed countries we are surrounded with. As a senator you know that a FG police system with less than 300k officers can't actively police the landmass and borders in the North.
Form your state police now!

You and other senators should scrap the FG police system and devote the unaudited security votes and constituency allowance to policing your corridors and forests. Let the airforce bomb them and put your rangers in the forests. Issue an ultimatum for those in the forests to leave

You are all living in a dream if you think the current police structure will become efficient overnight.
Budget, Personnel, Technology, Equipment, Surveillance..It's impossible.
Form your state and community police and flush out the terrorists.

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