Suchergebnisse

Review article of the books "Economic growth in Indonesia, 1820-1940" edited by Angus Maddison and Ge Prince and "Indonesian economic history in the Dutch colonial era" edited by Anne Booth, W. J. O'Malley and Anna Weidemann. David Feeny believes that these two books contribute importantly to knowledge of Indonesian economic history during the colonial period. (DÜI-Sen)

Like many land-abundant, labor-scarce economies, Thailand had a well-developed system of property rights in man. Over the nineteenth century corvée and slavery were abolished and replaced by military conscription, a head tax, and more precise property rights in land. Concomitant trends included extensive commercialization, the growth of international trade, imperialist threats to Thai sovereignty, and the growth of a centralized unitary state. Both domestic and international political motives influenced monarchs in the abolition of human-property rights. Economic change greatly facilitated these institutional changes.

Kikuchi and Hayami found that irrigation investments were undertaken in East and Southeast Asia when the costs of increasing output through irrigating were lower than through bringing more land under cultivation. In Thailand, however, despite the lower costs of irrigation, the investments were postponed for several decades. The delay was due to a divergence between national security and economic development goals and to a conflict of private versus public interests. The results highlight the importance of the returns to decision makers in determining the amount and timing of public investments.