Despite its utmost importance, the issue of industrial development has been largely neglected in the literature for the last few decades. The authors have conducted comparative case studies between Chinese and Japanese industries.

TETSUSHI SONOBE is a Professorial Fellow at the Foundation for Advanced Studies on International Development (FASID) and a Professor at National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies (GRIPS), Japan. He received a PhD in Economics from Yale University and taught at Tokyo Metropolitan University from 1992 to 2003.

KEIJIRO OTSUKA is a Professorial Fellow at FASID and a Professor at GRIPS, Japan. He received a PhD in Economics from the University of Chicago and taught at Tokyo Metropolitan University from 1980 to 2001. He is an Associate Editor of Economic Development and Cultural Change and the co-author of six books.