Economic theorists have had something of a battering in recent years. They failed to explain, let alone predict, Japan's lost two decades of economic progress. And they failed to predict, or even criticize, the policies that allowed Thailand to emerge as a leading global manufacturer and exporter of automobiles.
During some economic research in Asia during the early 1970s, I came across a Thailand that seemed to have fallen into the very protectionist trap those theorists like to warn us about. To industrialize it had imposed heavy tariffs on the import of finished manufactured goods, automobiles especially.
And while foreign car exporters to Thailand, the Japanese especially, had then rushed in to build assembly plants, Thailand seemed destined to remain forever saddled with inefficient assembly plants while having to import at great cost the parts and materials needed to keep those plants alive.