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KDI 경제교육·정보센터

ENG
  • 경제배움
  • Economic

    Information

    and Education

    Center

최신자료
On the Origins of Modern East Asia: Knowledge and the Economic Transformation of Japan and China in the late 19th century
CEPR
2026.04.08
This paper revisits the old thesis of the contrasting paths of modernization between Japan and China. It develops a new analytical framework regarding the role of knowledge acquisition (propositional vs. prescriptive) and political centralization as the key drivers behind these contrasting paths. Our model and historical data highlight how the introduction of these elements contributed to Meiji Japan’s decisive turn towards the West and Qing China’s lethargic response to Western imperialism. Our analytical framework, developed from a comparative historical narrative and quantitative data, sheds new insights onto the importance of knowledge acquisition for enabling developing countries to reach the world’s economic frontier.