arguments Theoretical Mainstream economic analysis points out that EOI presupposes that a government contains the relevant market-knowledge enabling it to judge whether or not an industry to be given development subsidies will prove a good investment in the future. The ability of a government to do this, it is argued, is probably limited as it will not have occurred through the natural interaction of the market forces of supply and demand. Additionally, they claim that the exploitation of a potential comparative advantage requires a significant amount of investment, of which governments can only supply a limited amount. In many LDCs, it is necessary for multinational corporations to provide the foreign direct investment, knowledge, skills and training needed to develop an industry and exploit the future comparative advantage. This line of argument runs against heterodox (and particularly Post-Keynesian) analysis. There, the investment requirements for state investment, denominated in the national currency, are never operationally constrained; any claim about the "limited" ability of the state to finance expenditures in its own currency is rejected. Neither, Post-Keynesians state, is there a question of the private sector competing with the state for available funds, due to their opinions on hypotheses about "crowding out". As to the claim about the state's inability to engage in basic, primary, "paradigm changing" investment in research and development, the work of economists such as Mariana Mazzucato has claimed that the claim is groundless. Scholars have claimed that governments in East Asia, nonetheless, did have the ability and the resources to identify and exploit comparative advantages. EOI has, therefore, been supported as a development strategy for poor countries - because of its success in the Four Asian Tigers. This claim has been challenged by a minority of non-mainstream economists, who have instead emphasised the very specific historical, political, and legislative conditions in East Asia that were not present elsewhere, and which allowed for the success of EOI in these nations. Japanese producers, for example, were given preferential access to US and European markets after World War II. Additionally, some domestic production was explicitly protected from outside competition, for an extensive period of time and until local business entities had become strong enough to compete internationally. They claim that the protectionist policies are crucial to the success of EOI. Empirical Despite its support in mainstream economic circles, EOI's ostensible success has been increasingly challenged over recent years due to a growing