Development of the Labour Surplus Economy (Review Article )

In: The Pakistan development review: PDR, Band 5, Heft 2, S. 271-294

Abstract

The concept of surplus labour has featured prominently in the
recent literature on economic development of underdeveloped,
overpopulated economies. W. A. Lewis in his two celebrated articles [1J
attempted a precise formu¬lation of the concept of surplus labour and
sought to analyse its implications for the strategy of economic
development in the context of a two sector model of economic growth.
Messrs. J. C. H. Fei and Gustav Ranis have undertaken in this book1 an
elaborate extension of the two-sector growth model of W. A. Lewis. The
major directions in which the authors have sought to extend or elaborate
the model and the main results of their efforts in this respect are
contained in their earlier article "Unlimited Supply of Labour and the
Concept of Balanced Growth", published in the Pakistan Development
Review, Winter 1961, Vol. 1, No. 3. The various sections of the article
have now been expanded and elaborated into chapters of the
book*.