BOOK LAUNCH
No Miracle:
What Asia Can Teach All Countries About Growth
by
Dr. Mitchell Wigdor
Adjunct Professor
University of Toronto, Faculty of Law
Thursday, April 4, 2013
12:30 – 2:00
Solarium (room FA2), Falconer Hall
84 Queen’s Park
ABSTRACT: No Miracle: What Asia Can Teach All Countries About Growth describes how to build the institutions needed to integrate into an increasingly global economy. Focusing specifically upon the institutions needed to promote the usage of information and communications technology (ICT), it argues that the governments of less economically developed countries must foster the spread of ICT throughout their societies if they hope to stimulate sustained economic growth. Otherwise, there is little hope that those nations will come to enjoy prosperity. Economists examining the relationship between ICT and economic growth have placed institutions at the heart of the development debate, but they have provided little practical advice to governments seeking to improve their countries’ economies. Presenting detailed case studies of the institution-building efforts of Malaysia and Singapore, two countries that were able to achieve sustained growth, the book shifts the debate from whether institutions are important to economic development to which institutions are important and how to build them. Malaysia and Singapore’s success holds important lessons for other countries.
BIO: A frequent visitor to Asia since 1984 for work, to teach and as a tourist, Mitchell Wigdor resides in Toronto, Canada where he is lawyer and a business advisor specializing in international and domestic corporate transactions and finance. He has over twenty-five years of experience structuring and negotiating joint ventures, strategic alliances and acquisitions in Asia (primarily Southeast Asia and greater China), Europe and North America. Prior to establishing his own advisory services firm, Nextep Strategy Inc., Mitchell was a partner in the Toronto law firm of Blake, Cassels & Graydon where his practice focused upon acquisitions, corporate finance, restructurings, telecommunications and competition. Mitchell teaches a course on the role of the private sector in economic development at the University of Toronto, Faculty of Law where he is an Adjunct Professor. He is a graduate of Harvard College (A.B.), the London School of Economics and Political Science (M.Sc.), McGill Law School (B.C.L.-LL.B.) and the University of Toronto (S.J.D.). Mitchell is a member of the Bars of Ontario and Quebec and is the Honorary Consul for Malaysia in Toronto.
A light lunch will be provided.
