Yet, there remain many issues which to date have not been examined adequately. For example, in an era of globalized systems of production, distribution and exchange, will the industrial structures of the East Asian NIC economies (based as they are on national systems of regulation), have the exibility and adaptability needed to compete in a global economy dominated by ``stateless'' corpora- tions? This question is particularly relevant where such corporations have emerged as a consequence of the developmental experience of the NICs themselves. What, for instance, are the implications if a ``Third World'' transna- tional company (TNC) moves o shore and transfers production activities to even cheaper sites elsewhere in the ``Third World''? Similarly, is it necessarily the case that the more recent East Asian proto-NICs (e.g., Thailand, Indo- nesia and Malaysia) will continue to follow the ``accepted'' model as de®ned by the World Bank (1993)?