Growth in a Traditional Society

Sample

Erh-Cheng Hwa

The paper analyzes the contribution of agriculture to economic growth. By employing cross-section data for the developing and developed countries during 1960-1970 and 1970-1979, it is found that in the context of Mr. Chenery-Syrquin's model intercountry variation in agricultural growth explains a significant portion of intercountry variation in the industrial (non-agricultural) growth. Further, in the context of an aggregate production function agricultural growth is found to contribute significantly to productivity increases and thus to overall economic growth. For the developing countries sample of the 1970-79 period, the results show that a one percent increase in agricultural growth leads to approximately four-tenths of a percentage point increase in productivity. It is also found that export growth contributes positively to productivity growth while the inflation rate contributes negatively.

Sample

Harry T. Oshima

The countries of monsoon Asia - whose economies have traditionally depended on rice cultivation - face unique problems in economic development because of their weather. During a typical year, they experience six months of heavy rains followed by six months of relatively dry conditions. This alternation of wet and dry weather places unusual demands on the work force, which can be close to fully employed while the land is wet for rice cultivation but must seek other employment during the rest of the year. Although nations such as Japan have long been free from this cycle of low employment and low productivity, others still struggle with seemingly intractable problems. Offering a range of policy prescriptions, Harry Oshima focuses on how strategic processes - including full-employment strategies, education reform, technological development, capital formation, consumer spending and saving, and multicrop diversification - contribute to strengthening the developing economies of Asian nations affected by the monsoon season. Continuing the analysis he began in Economic Growth in Monsoon Asia, Oshima examines current data from highly successful monsoon-Asian nations like Japan, Taiwan, and Korea and compares their experiences to those of countries like Indonesia, the Philippines, Bangladesh, and India. His insights and conclusions will guide further development in this important region - and may offer lessons for developing nations in other parts of the world.

Sample

Paul K. Conkin

This book assesses the skills, new technologies, and government policies that transformed farming in America and suggests how new legislation could affect it in the coming decades.

Sample

Anita Brookner

I have come to believe that there can be no adequate preparation for the sadness that comes at the end, the sheer regret that one's life is finished, that one's failures remain indelible and one's successes illusory.' Elizabeth and Betsy are old school friends. Born in 1948 and unready for the sixties, they had high hopes of the lives they would lead, even though their circumstances were so different. When they meet again in their thirties, Elizabeth, married to the safe, older Digby is relieving the boredom of a cosy but childless marriage with an affair. Betsy seems to have found real romance in Paris. Are their lives taking off, or are they just making more of the wrong choices without even realising it?