 Imagine a group of countries that are looking to grow out of poverty. They see another group of countries that has achieved growth before them. The growth of Japan, followed by Korea, Malaysia, Thailand, Vietnam, and of course China, has been nothing short of extraordinary. Between 1990 and 2013, this growth lifted more than a billion people out of extreme poverty. Did these countries follow the path of the West, or did they forge a new one? This imaginary group of countries could also be much of Sub-Saharan Africa today. And they would be looking at the East Asian Tigers. The world has changed a great deal since the East Asian miracle. So how can Sub-Saharan Africa grow in the 21st century? East Asian economic miracle is a manufacturing miracle. It turns out there are at least three reasons why manufacturing may be a leading sector in the process of economic transformation or structural change. The first is that it's a tradable activity, which means it's subject to international competition and firms are forced to innovate and look for ways to increase their own output per worker. Second, manufacturing is a learning-intensive industry. Manufacturing firms band together in cities or in clusters. And what that means is that firms themselves learn in the course of production. But that knowledge can spill over to other firms in the economy, offering benefits that we economists like to call externalities. Third, manufacturing converges to productivity levels that are characteristic of the best practice in the world, regardless of where in the world manufacturing activities are found. Should countries in Africa follow the same path to prosperity? Three trends in the global economy suggest that it may be more difficult for Africa to industrialize than it was for Asia. The first is East Asia itself. When East Asia broke into the global economy, it confronted the global north, a high-wage but high-productivity part of the world. Today, African firms are competing with East Asia, a relatively lower-wage high-productivity part of the world. Secondly, manufacturing as a share of output is declining. What that means is it may not be able to play the same role in structural change in Africa as it did in Asia. Finally, we live in a world of global value chains. And global value chains are good news and bad news for late industrializers. The good news is they offer an opportunity to break into a segment of the global market that is most suited to the capabilities of firms. The bad news is they're highly intensive in trade logistics. And trade logistics has been an area in which African countries haven't excelled. Despite this bad news, there's an opportunity to think differently about what we mean by industry. There are a number of activities that have characteristics very similar to manufacturing. And we call these industries industries without smokestacks. These are relatively new industries that, thanks to technology and changing transport costs, are available in the 21st century as engines of growth. They include horticulture, agro-processing, tourism, tradable services such as information and communication intensive activities, and light manufacturing, mainly directed at the regional market. So should countries in Africa follow the same path to prosperity, or do they need to forge a new one? The lesson for Africa, I think, is to follow the same path, but to adapt to the new realities and new industries of the 21st century. Done right, industrialization in Africa can transform the lives of hundreds of millions of people. The next question is how to make the right interventions. And that's the subject of a series of lectures available online for free.