ABSTRACT
Introduction Japan and the East Asian ‘dragon economies’ Korea, Taiwan and Singapore have been subject to a historically unique process of catching up with the Western economies. The institutional foundations of this process involve technology policies exercised by developmental states with a focus on the assimilation of new technologies. The rationale of this policy approach has been shifting recently as the capability for generating technological innovations becomes essential for sustaining economic growth, based on science-based technologies such as biotechnology. Accordingly, the East Asian developmental states are transformed into new types of entrepreneurial states. In discussing these issues, the chapter proceeds as follows. The first section addresses the East Asian developmental states and related technology policies. The second section takes on the institutional transformations of these policies. The following two sections address country examples: Japan as well as Korea, Taiwan and Singapore. The final section interprets these observations in terms of the Schumpeterian concept of the entrepreneurial state.
