The intellectual roots of latecomer industrial development

I argue that a secure platform for strategising around industrial development can be built on insights from three streams of literature: the latecomer in history (associated with Gerschenkron), and the special advantages that may be derived from recognition of the latecomer effect; latecomer industrial dynamics, and in particular the flying geese patterns of industry transfer from country to country, associated with Akamatsu; and increasing returns, forward and backward linkages and other aspects of disequilibrium dynamics, associated in a development context particularly with Hirschman. These sources place the emphasis where it belongs – on the initiatives taken by the developing country itself utilising strategies that complement disequilibrium industrial dynamics.