Overcoming Structural Barriers

In examining state-led industrialisation, we find that state-ownership guaranteed capacity build-up in the steel industry in Korea, India and Brazil. But only Korea achieved rapid industrial change by maintaining investment momentum. A bureaucratic approach to industrial governance and populist policies limited the development of the Brazilian and Indian state-owned steel industries. A comparative study of the these late industrialising countries tells us that both innovative behaviour and institutional capability are necessary to organise capitalist production.