Final answer:
Industrial policies were crucial to the success of the East Asian Tigers, which focused on export-led industrial strategies and targeted infant industry policies to nurture sectors where they could compete globally.
Step-by-step explanation:
The evidence that industrial policies were a major influence on East Asian success lies in the economic history of the region known as the East Asian Tigers, which includes Taiwan, Singapore, Hong Kong, and South Korea. These nations implemented export-led industrialization strategies from the early 1960s to 1990, which allowed them to maintain high growth rates and develop competitive industries in global markets. They focused on products such as computers, automobiles, plastics, chemicals, steel, shipbuilding, and sporting goods, combining standardized production technologies with low-cost labor.
An early 1990 World Bank study provided guidelines on the use of infant industry policies, explaining why such strategies were effectual in East Asia. These guidelines emphasized not providing protectionism and subsidies to all industries, but rather targeting a few where the country had the potential to become a world-class producer. By doing so, East Asian economies could protect their nascent industries until they were mature enough to compete internationally, lending credence to the effectiveness of infant industry policies in the region's economic development.