Akamatsu’s Flying Geese Model of Development in East Asia and Beyond

In this chapter, we shall discuss the development as well as changes accompanying the birth and succession of the Flying Geese Model, which has garnered attention with regards to thinking on East Asia’s economic development since the second half of the 1980s. This model was given birth by Kaname Akamatsu in the 1930s. Due to the series of developments of East Asian countries in the 1960s, it evolved from research that was mainly advanced by Akamatsu and his successors to a globally-acclaimed veritable East Asian Development Theory by the second half of the 1980s. Interest and thinking on the model, however, greatly changed from Akamatsu’s original German historical approach to modern economics approaches, as well as into an East Asian development model that is led by Japan. In this chapter, we return to the original problem statement of the Flying Geese Model, and consider the significance and issues of Akamatsu’s Flying Geese Model in today’s context.