ABSTRACT
The gravity of the world economy is shifting toward emerging economies. According to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) (2012), the GDP weight of emerging and developing countries has jumped from 30 percent in 1990 to 48 percent in 2010 in just 20 years. 1 Global foreign direct investment (FDI) flows have been teetering toward the developing world as well. In 2012, the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) (2013) reported that developing countries absorbed more FDI than developed countries for the first time ever, accounting for 52 percent. McKinsey Global Institute (MGI) also estimated that by 2025 annual consumption in emerging markets will rise to US$30 trillion, up from US$12 trillion in 2010, and will account for nearly 50 percent of the world’s total, up from 32 percent in 2010 (Atsmon et al. , 2012). How emerging economies, particularly China, can grow so fast in so short a period of time has become the interest of study on the development economics and growth strategies for catching-up, such as import substitution, big push, and flying-geese theories (Radelet and Sachs, 1997) over the past half-century, and the recent new structural economics (Lin, 2012a).
