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Growth and Distribution in the Market Economies of East Asia

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 June 2011

Gary S. Fields
Gary S. Fields
Affiliation:
Cornell University
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Abstract

Who benefits how much from economic development? Three approaches to measuring the income distribution effects of growth are described and contrasted, and the experiences of various countries are classified accordingly. Seven books analyzing patterns of change in income distribution in Asia are reviewed. Although some of the authors feel that “getting the prices right” in a market economy with a minimum of government interference is the way to achieve growth and distributional goals, a better conclusion is that synergism between policy and initial conditions explains the presence or absence of equitable growth.

Type
Review Articles
Information
World Politics , Volume 35 , Issue 1 , October 1982 , pp. 150 - 160
Copyright
Copyright © Trustees of Princeton University 1982

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References

1 Good overviews of the shift in thinking may be found in Ranis, Gustav, “Equity and Growth: New Dimensions of Development,” Journal of Conflict Resolution, XIX (September 1975), 558–68CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and Thorbecke, Erik, “Three Decades of Development,” mimeo (Cornell University, 1980).Google Scholar

2 For references to studies of income distribution in other parts of the world, see Fields, Gary S., Poverty, Inequality, and Development (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1980)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Frank, Charles R. Jr. and Webb, Richard C., eds., Income Distribution and Growth in the Less-Developed Countries (Washington, D.C.: Brookings, 1977)Google Scholar; Cline, William R., “Distribution and Development: A Survey of the Literature,” Journal of Development Economics, 1 (July 1975), 359–400CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Loehr, William and Powelson, John, The Economics of Development and Distribution (New York: Harcourt, Brace, Jovanovich, 1981)Google Scholar; and the references cited in these books.

3 This section is drawn from Fields (fn. 2). For other discussions of measuring income distribution, see Sen, Amartya, On Economic Inequality (New York: Norton, 1973)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Atkinson, Anthony B., The Economics of Inequality (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1975)Google Scholar; and Kakwani, Nanak C., Income Inequality and Poverty (New York: Oxford University Press, 1980).Google Scholar

4 Pyatt, Graham, Chen, Chau-Nan, and Fei, John C. H., “The Distribution of Income by Factor Components,” Quarterly Journal of Economics, Vol. 94 (November, 1980), 451–73.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

5 , Galenson, “How to Develop Successfully: The Taiwan Model,” paper prepared for the Conference on Economic Development in Taiwan, December 1981.Google Scholar

6 See the Sri Lanka case study in Fields (fn. 2), chap. 6.

7 Compare Table 6.19 in Fields, ibid., with Table 7 in Galenson (fn. 5).

8 I derive this poverty-reduction figure by comparing the 4.6% reduction of poverty (Adelman and Robinson, Table 53) with the 8.0% poverty rate using a 90,000-won poverty line and the 14.5% poverty rate using a line of 120,000 won (Adelman and Robinson, Table 39).