Shirley W Y Kuo - The Taiwan Success Story: Rapid Growith With Improved Distribution in the Republic of China, 1952-1979

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The Taiwan Success Story: Rapid Growth with Improved Distribution in the Republic of China, 1952-1979

About the Book and Authors

The Taiwan Success Story: Rapid Growth with Improved Distribution in the Republic of China, 1952-1979 Shirley W. Y. Kuo, Gustav Ranis, and John C. H. Fei

Economists and policymakers have long been perplexed over the way rapid growth appears to conflict with the other common goal of developing nations more equitable income distribution. But economic expansion need not preclude equity, as demonstrated by the case of Taiwan, which experienced high rates of economic growth between the early 1950s and the late 1970s while simultaneously improving the distribution of income among its people.

This book describes how the Republic of China managed this balancing of goals and analyzes the reasons for Taiwan's exceptional performance. The authors illustrate how full utilization of the country's vast human resources through emphasis on labor-intensive production has worked to make Taiwan's products competitive in international markets and to make fiscal redistribution after the fact unnecessary. They also cite Taiwan's early attention to land reform, to productivity in agriculture, and to the spread of decentralized rural industry as important factors in the country's achievements. They point out that, although the specifics may change, strategies and policy implications drawn from the Taiwan experience should be applicable in other developing countries.

Shirley W. Y. Kuo is professor of economics at Taiwan National University and deputy governor of the Central Bank of China in Taipei. Gustav Ranis and John C. H. Fei are professors of economics associated with the Economic Growth Center at Yale University.

The Taiwan Success Story: Rapid Growth with Improved Distribution in the Republic of China, 1952-1979

Shirley W. Y. Kuo, Gustav Ranis, and John C. H. Fei

First published 1981 by Westview Press

Published 2019 by Routledge
52 Vanderbilt Avenue, New York, NY 10017
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN

Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business

Copyright 1981 by Taylor & Francis

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.

Notice:
Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe.

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Kuo, Shirley W. Y., 1930-
The Taiwan success story.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
1. TaiwanEconomic conditions 1945- . 2. TaiwanEconomic policy.
I. Ranis, Gustav. II. Fei, John C. H. III. Title.
HC430.5.K885 338.951'249 81-12980
ISBN 0-86531-309-1 (pbk.) AACR2

ISBN 13: 978-0-367-29646-9 (hbk)

Contents

1. ii
2. iii
3. xix

Guide

Tables

Figures

Economic development of the Republic of China in the postwar period can be said to be highly satisfactory as rapid growth was accompanied by stable prices, achievement of full employment, and improved income distribution. In the early postwar years, concern with growth reigned supreme in the minds of third world policy makers and analysts. There was a feeling that equity could be taken care of "later," most likely via fiscal measures of government. By the 1970s, however, substantial disillusionment had set in. It appeared that the distribution of income was bad and seemed to worsen as growth proceeded. As the promised redistribution seemed to continue to recede, confidence in it began to wane; people and politicians began to express impatience and to talk in terms of choosing the alternative goal of equity instead of growth.

There exist very few examples anywhere of developing societies that have grown rapidly and at the same time managed to markedly improve their distribution of income. Taiwan is one of them. This book endeavors to demonstrate just how this was achieved how the two important goals of growth and equity could become complementary and mutually reinforcing, rather than competitive, objectives. The Taiwan Success Story demonstrates that redistribution with growth is possible, as a consequence of the way growth is generated, and that one does not have to wait for an eventual redistribution from growth.

This book tries to document the specific reasons for Taiwan's exceptional performance. These reasons, and the accompanying policy implications, are formulated so as to permit an examination of their applicability or nonapplicability to other developing countries. Our analysis is based on a methodology developed in a book by the same authors entitled Growth With Equity: The Taiwan Case, published in late 1979 by the Oxford University Press, which kindly gave permission to proceed with this volume. Here we have tried to bring the data forward from 1972 to 1979, as well as to make the arguments accessible to the intelligent general reader.

We would like to thank M. C. Cheng and C. M. Tang for their help in preparing the manuscript and Karen Mikkelsen for her editorial assistance.

Shirley W. Y. Kuo
Gustav Ranis
John C. H. Fei

The Taiwan Success Story: Rapid Growth with Improved Distribution in the Republic of China, 1952-1979

1
Introduction

The 1950s and 1960s have been characterized as exclusively growth-oriented; now, however, it is widely held that successful economic development should be identified not only with rapid growth but also with improved income distribution. Most economists and policy makers, however, share at least implicitly the assumption of the need for a tradeoff between growth and equity. The work of Kuznets, Paukert, and Adelman and Morris, on the basis of cross-country cross-sections, concludes that, as income increases from low levels in a developing society, the distribution of income must first worsen before it can improve. Two facts support their conclusion. First, today's less developed countries (LDCs) generally have income distributions that are less equal than those of the rich countries. Second, accelerated LDC growth has most often been accompanied by a worsening of already unfavorable indexes of equality.

Historically, the record of almost all contemporary LDCs reinforces the general outlook of tradeoff pessimism. Taiwan, the Republic of China, is one exception. According to the best data available, Taiwan's family distribution of income in the 1950s was not very different from the unfavorable levels that plague most LDCs in the early years of their transition effort. But the distribution has improved substantially during two decades of rapid growth. This "deviant" record should therefore be of interest to academics and policy makers.

Although no two countries are ever alike and deviant performance may be based on special circumstances, an examination of the relationship between growth and equity in a country exhibiting such an unusual performance can help to isolate the critical elements of that performance. Only then is it possible to judge whether the underlying conditions, which seem to have had the effect of virtually eliminating the usual conflict between these two principal societal objectives in Taiwan, the Republic of China, are sufficient elsewhere to permit somewhat greater optimism. Such optimism would not be based on the conclusion that achieving growth with equity is easy. Instead it would be based on the conclusion that some of the obstacles are made by man, not nature, and can thus be removed by changes in policy.

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