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Competing Hypotheses of Underdevelopment: A Thai Case Study

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 May 2010

David Feeny
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Abstract

This paper will test three models of underdevelopment against the experience of Thailand from 1850 to 1940, when Thailand became a major rice exporter. The models are a dependency model, a staples model, and a supply and demand model of technical and institutional change. The technical and institutional change model provides the best explanation. Divergences between the goals of national security and economic development as well as those between the private interests of the elite decision makers and the social interest explain Thai underinvestment in increasing agricultural productivity and account in large part for the persistence of underdevelopment.

Type
Papers Presented at the Thirty-Eighth Annual Meeting of the Economic History Association
Information
The Journal of Economic History , Volume 39 , Issue 1 , March 1979 , pp. 113 - 127
Copyright
Copyright © The Economic History Association 1979

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References

1 See Baldwin, Robert E., “Patterns of Development in Newly Settled Regions,” Manchester School of Economic and Social Studies, 24 (05 1956), 161–79Google Scholar; idem, “Export Technology and Development from a Subsistence Level,” Economic Journal, 73 (March 1964), 80-92; and Myint, Hla, “The ‘Classical Theory’ of International Trade and the Underdeveloped Countries,” Economic Journal, 68 (06 1958), 317–37Google Scholar.

2 This section is based on Feeny, David, “Technical and Institutional Change in Thai Agriculture, 1880-1940” (Ph.D. diss., Univ. of Wisconsin-Madison, 1976)Google Scholar.

3 This section is based on ibid.

4 Bell, Peter F., “Historical Determinants of Underdevelopmnent in Thailand” (MS., 1972), p. 1Google Scholar This section is based on Bell, ibid.

5 Brown's examination of Thai monetary policy from 1890 to 1910 and the role of the British financial advisors shows that the advisors were independently appointed and had few relations with the British Legation in Bangkok and the London Foreign Office. They were but one voice in policy formulation, used primarily for their technical expertise; policy making rested with the Thai officials. See Brown, Ian, “British Financial Advisors in Siam in the Reign of King Chulalongkorn,” Modern Asian Studies, 12 (04 1978), 193–215CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

6 See Birriberg, Thomas B. and Resnick, Stephen A., “A Model of the Trade and Government Sectors in Colonial Economies,” American Economic Review, 63 (09 1973), 572–87Google Scholar.

7 This section is based on Ayal, Eliezer B., “A Staple Theory for the Economic Development of Surplus Capacity Underdeveloped Countries” (Center for International Affairs, Harvard Univ., 1964)Google Scholar.

8 This section is based on Feeny, David, “Induced Technical and Institutional Change: A Thai Case Study,” in Means, Gordon P., ed., The Past in Southeast Asia's Present (Ottawa, 1978), pp. 56–69Google Scholar.

9 This section is based on Feeny, David, “Paddy, Princes, and Productivity: Irrigation and Thai Agricultural Development, 1900-1940,” Explorations in Economic History, 16 (04 1979), forthcomingCrossRefGoogle Scholar

10 The conservative counterfactual ex post cost-benefit estimates indicate an internal rate of return of 19 to 22 percent. Ex ante estimates range from 11 to 17 percent. The internal rate of return on the net revenues of the railway was less than 1 percent; for more detail see Feeny, ibid.

11 Thailand, Royal Irrigation Department, Administration Report of the. Royal Irrigation Depart ment ofSiamfor the Period 2457 B.E.-2468 B.E. (1914-15)-(1925-26) (Bangkok, 1927), p. 6Google Scholar.

12 This section is based on Feeny, David, “From Property Rights in Man to Property Rights in Land: Institutional Change in Thai Agriculture, 1850 to 1940” (McMaster Univ. Dept. of Economics Working Paper No. 77–12, 1977)Google Scholar.

13 This section is based on Feeny, “Induced Technical and Institutional Change.”.

14 Graham, W. A., Siam, 2 vols. (3rd ed.; London, 1924), vol. I., p. 355Google Scholar.