The debate on the role of government policies for
economic performance has, iu recent years, turned
from discussing the choice between free markets and
government intervention to asking what types of
intervention are good and bad. One reason is that
almost all governments, irrespective of their political
orientation, have chosen to play au active role iu their
economy (see e.g., Bardhan, 1990). The definition of
successful intervention is still disputed, however,
although an important lesson from the recent exp
erience of several Asian economies seems to be that
governments should make use of market forces in
their efforts to inlluence the direction and character of
economic growth: markets and competition need to be
retained to discourage wasteful use of resources and to
encourage learning and technical advances.