ABSTRACT
Robert E. Lucas, Jr, in his Econometrica article entitled ‘Making a Miracle’, 1 used the Philippines as an example of a country that had failed to transform itself into an economic miracle. Lucas used the phrase to describe a process of productivity growth and industrial transformation associated with profound improvements in living standards of the country’s population. He had in mind the transformation that at the time had been occurring in the Republic of Korea (South Korea), Taiwan, Hong Kong and Singapore in East and South-East Asia, economies that in about three decades from 1960 had witnessed a growth rate in real per capita income of 5% to 7% each year. I will refer to a country showing signs of undergoing such a transformation as an emerging economy.
