What would be best explain why some east asian countries such as taiwan, south korea and singapore have been able to grow over the past 50 years?

These countries managed to get where they were by betting on the only resource they had in abundance: their people.

Both governments and families realized the value of education, and invested in it in an extraordinary way, and that bet was provided by the engineers and industrial workers who need the manufacturing base where the country's wealth comes from.

Economists and leaders of all political currents agree that the increase in human capital through a large investment in education is one of the secrets of the success of these Asian nations.