Some Observations on the Efficiency of Industrialization

Increasingly manifest, in recent discussions of economic policy-making of less developed countries, has been a greater concern for problems of industrial effi¬ciency [see, 1 ;2;3;4;5;6;10]. This awakening interest is stirred by the realization that the process of industrialization has all too often led to a high-cost industrial structure, and a consequent inability to compete effectively in world markets and against imports. Understandably, absorption of national energies in the task of establishing an industrial structure has frequently meant that consideration of its qualitative performance was not given sufficient weight. Equally understandably, no one should expect the creation, ab initio, of a smoothly functioning industrial system.