On the other hand, a group of economists known as revisionists attribute greater significance to other aspects of the East Asian success story that have gone relatively unnoticed in the neoclassical analysis They observe that the East Asian governments have taken a much more active role in the economic development process than the one envisaged by neoclassicists and thus argue that, despite efforts to do quite the opposite, the government has actually been leading the market. Revisionists even go on to argue that during the late industrialization stage, the state should deliberately set prices at market-distorting levels in order to create profitable investment opportunities. Also emphasized is the existence of market failures in developing economies due to market imperfections such as a lack of relevant markets. It is thus contended that an active role on the part of the government is necessary to guide resource allocation for the highest growth of the overall economy. Amsden, one of the staunchest revisionists, even suggests that the central bank may support the priority industries at the cost of macroeconomic stability. The World Bank (1993) answered the revisionists' argument with the reassertion of an obvious truth: 'For interventions that attempt to guide resource allocation to succeed, they must address failures in the working of markets. Otherwise, the market would perform the allocation function more efficiently. Again, macroeconomic stability is emphasized as the most important precondition for extensive economic development.
In sum, the debate on the role of the government in economic development centered around the issue of market failure versus government failure. Of course, market failure generally reflects the failure of institutions, another form of governmental failure - this time the failure lies in the government's inability to set up the right institutions or, in other words, the rules of the game in the economy. Therefore, market failure on its own cannot be considered as an automatic justification for direct government intervention. Rather, the government should try for direct to introduce 'right' institutions to provide an optimal environment for better economic performance. Furthermore, in most cases of apparent market failures, it should not go unnoticed that government regulation or its practices of preferential treatment usually turn out to be the major causes of those failures.