'Grow first, clean up later' environmental strategies in the developing economies of East Asia pose a critical regional and global sustainability challenge in this area of continuing rapid urban-based industrial growth which is the most polluted region in the world. Using detailed case studies and rigorous empirical analyses Rock and Angel show that East Asian governments have found institutionally unique ways to overcome the sustainability challenge, thus proving an important antidote to those who argue that poor countries cannot afford to clean up their environment whilst their economies remain under-developed. The authors, leading experts in the field, demonstrate that low income economies outside East Asia can also use the same policy integration effectively.

Michael T. Rock has lived and taught in Thailand and Vietnam; has served as senior economist of the Winrock International Institute for Agricultural Development, a development NGO established by the Rockefeller family. Received PhD in economics from the University of Pittsburgh. Recently awarded a grant from the Ministry of the Economy, Trade and Industry in Japan to study energy intensity in the pulp and paper industry in China, the US National Science Foundation to study the environmental behaviour of cement plants in China, Malaysia and Thailand, and a MacArthur Foundation grant to study the integration of industrial policy with environmental policy in China and Taiwan. Has consulted for the World Bank, the Asian Development Bank, the Asia Foundation, the UN Development Program and the UN Industrial Development Organization.
David P. Angel holds degrees from Cambridge University and UCLA; he is the recipient of numerous grants and awards, including an Abe Fellowship awarded by the Center for Global Partnership in conjunction with the Social Science Research Council and the American Council of Learned Societies. His research includes work conducted for the US Department of Commerce, the US Agency for International Development, the Asian Development Bank, and the MacArthur Foundation. He has consulted widely for public and private organizations around the world.

• 1.: East Asia's Sustainability Challenge


• 2.: Late Industrialization and Technological Capabilities Building


• 3.: Policy Integration: From Technology Upgrading to Industrial Environmental Improvement


• 4.: The Role of Environmental Regulatory Agencies in Sustainability: Korea and Indonesia


• 5.: Globalization, Opennes to Trade and Investment, Technology Transfer and Technology and the Environment: The Cement Industry in East Asia


• 6.: Win-Win Environmental Intensity or Technique Effects and Technological Learning: Evidence from Siam City Cement


• 7.: Impact of Multinational Corporations' Firm-Based Environmental Standards on Subsidiaries and their Suppliers: Evidence from Motorola-Penang


• 8.: Global Standards and the Environmental Performance of Industry


• 9.: Implications for other Industrializing Economies


• 10.: Prospects for Policy Integration in Low Income Economies


• 11.: Bibliography