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1 results

  • 7 - Growth and Globalization Phases in South East Asian Development

  • from Part I - Regional Developments
  • Edited by Stephen Broadberry, University of Oxford, Kyoji Fukao, Hitotsubashi University, Tokyo
  • Book:
    The Cambridge Economic History of the Modern World
    Published online:
    03 June 2021
    Print publication:
    24 June 2021, pp 176-212

  • Summary

    This article identifies two phases of rapid South East Asian economic growth and argues that both were linked to new opportunities in the global economy. During the first phase, stretching from the 1870s to 1929, South East Asia grew through vent-for-surplus trade in resource-intensive primary commodities. Just four of these – rice, rubber, tin, and sugar – accounted for most exports. In a second phase, under way by the early 1970s, a shift in factor endowments from surplus land to abundant labour attracted foreign multinationals in search of cheap labour and manufacturing for export, mainly to advanced economies. Through both phases of globalization-induced growth, trade served as its engine, but in neither did this lead to technical change becoming the chief source of expansion. Even in Singapore, low TFP growth is a chronic problem, while wealthier South East Asian countries like Malaysia and Thailand are in danger of being stuck in a middle-income trap.