This book focuses on two major developments in Bangladesh’s economic trajectory. First, the country’s economic policy paradigm gradually transitioned from a closed economic model to a free-market, neoliberal one that embraced globalization. While this shift was commenced in 1991, the process of policy learning had been both gradual and incremental, unfolding over the period from 1972 to 1991 under the successive governments of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, Ziaur Rahman, and Hussein Muhammad Ershad. The second key development is that this slow but steady policy learning laid the groundwork for the emergence of an export-oriented private sector garment industry. This sector would go on to play a central role in driving the country’s economic growth and recourse mobilization.