ABSTRACT
After recording remarkable economic development in the post-war decades, much of East Asia has democratized since the mid-1980s. Has the advent of representative government spurred further growth by improving protection of civil and property rights and by enhancing transparency and predictability of the political and policy process? Or has it failed to eliminate, or in some cases perhaps exacerbated, personalistic and even corrupt ties between government and business that threaten both democracy and economic development?
