{"title":"The great divergence on the Korean peninsula (1910–2020)","authors":"Duol Kim","doi":"10.1111/aehr.12225","DOIUrl":"10.1111/aehr.12225","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Before the 1960s, North Korea's GDP per capita was 30%–50% higher than South Korea's due to industrialisation during the 1930s. However, the governments of the two Koreas pursued different goals in the 1960s, which resulted in a reversal. The South Korean government made economic growth its ultimate goal. They did this by self-implementing, adjusting and instituting an export-oriented development strategy. On the other hand, the North Korean government tried to maximise its ability to survive by sacrificing gains from economies of scale. These differences brought about remarkable differences in economic performance. The gap between the two economies has continued to grow since the income level reversal in the 1970s.</p>","PeriodicalId":100132,"journal":{"name":"Asia‐Pacific Economic History Review","volume":"61 3","pages":"318-341"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-09-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41956464","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The economic history of Thailand: Old debates, recent advances, and future prospects","authors":"Panarat Anamwathana, Jessica Vechbanyongratana","doi":"10.1111/aehr.12224","DOIUrl":"10.1111/aehr.12224","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Despite slow development of Thai economic history scholarship, research output in the last three decades has shed new light and improved arguments on classic debates using novel primary sources and quantitative methods. This article traces the evolution of three Thai economic history debates from the late-nineteenth and twentieth centuries: (1) factors behind Thailand's slow economic growth; (2) the reluctance of rural workers to move into urban employment; and (3) the Thai government's failure to invest in large-scale irrigation projects. The article concludes with a discussion of current challenges facing Thai economic history research and suggestions to move the discipline forward.</p>","PeriodicalId":100132,"journal":{"name":"Asia‐Pacific Economic History Review","volume":"61 3","pages":"342-358"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-09-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43960940","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Why geography matters to the economic history of India","authors":"Tirthankar Roy","doi":"10.1111/aehr.12229","DOIUrl":"10.1111/aehr.12229","url":null,"abstract":"<p>That geography shapes long-run economic change is almost an axiom in economic history, but there is neither adequate understanding nor much agreement about how this influence works. This article is an attempt to contextualise Indian economic history against what we now know of this influence. It is also an attempt to define the geographical condition of the South Asia region in a manner compatible with the purpose of economic history, which is to explain the deep roots of economic growth and inequality.</p>","PeriodicalId":100132,"journal":{"name":"Asia‐Pacific Economic History Review","volume":"61 3","pages":"273-289"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-09-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49140950","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The state in Chinese economic history","authors":"Jiwei Qian, Tuan-Hwee Sng","doi":"10.1111/aehr.12226","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/aehr.12226","url":null,"abstract":"<p>We survey the recent economics and history literature on the Chinese state to investigate its role in China's long-term socioeconomic development. We highlight three insights. First, unlike in Europe, where interstate competition helped give rise to capitalist states with high capacity, the Chinese state emerged from a different historical context. Second, the 18th- and 19th-century Chinese state does not fit into the mould of a strong and extractive Oriental despotic state as once commonly believed. By conventional measures, early modern China had a weak state. Third, state building and centre-local relations are two useful dimensions to understand development and change in China's recent history and political economy. To adapt China to a changing world, Chinese state builders embarked on a long process of state building from the late-19th century through the Republican and Communist eras. Facilitated partly by regional decentralisation, the process now sees the Chinese state playing a substantially larger role in the economy and everyday life than any previous time in history.</p>","PeriodicalId":100132,"journal":{"name":"Asia‐Pacific Economic History Review","volume":"61 3","pages":"359-395"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-09-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"137869178","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Agricultural development in industrialising Japan, 1880–1940","authors":"Yutaka Arimoto, Yoshihiro Sakane","doi":"10.1111/aehr.12223","DOIUrl":"10.1111/aehr.12223","url":null,"abstract":"<p>This study reviews research examining agricultural development in industrialising Japan. We focus on the (dys)functioning of markets for land, finance, labour and agricultural commodities. We cover topics including land (mis)allocation, size-productivity relationships, tenancy contract choice and Marshallian inefficiency, property rights, microfinance, shock-coping strategies, rural–urban migration and agricultural market integration. The literature reveals that market failures often observed in developing economies were not prominent, except for possibly labour markets. The literature also highlights the roles and administrative capacities of central and local governments. Tight local communities served to reduce transaction costs.</p>","PeriodicalId":100132,"journal":{"name":"Asia‐Pacific Economic History Review","volume":"61 3","pages":"290-317"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-09-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1111/aehr.12223","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47589058","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Surveys of Asian Economic History: Guest editors' introduction","authors":"Duol Kim, Andrew J. Seltzer","doi":"10.1111/aehr.12228","DOIUrl":"10.1111/aehr.12228","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":100132,"journal":{"name":"Asia‐Pacific Economic History Review","volume":"61 3","pages":"248-251"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-09-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1111/aehr.12228","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46469987","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Industriousness and divergence: Living standards, housework and the Japanese diet in comparative historical perspective","authors":"Penelope Francks","doi":"10.1111/aehr.12222","DOIUrl":"10.1111/aehr.12222","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Quantitative comparisons of living standards across Eurasia continue to conclude that the eastern side of the “great divergence,” including Japan, lagged behind the leading regions of Europe from early-modern times onwards. The “industrious revolution” model attributes this to the early spread in Europe of markets for labour and consumer goods. By contrast, in Japan, persistent household self-sufficiency must have precluded improvements driven by market participation. However, qualitative evidence on the history of the now globally renowned Japanese diet reveals how a different dietary pattern, involving continued household-based, non-market production activities, might nonetheless have generated improved living standards, even if these are invisible to quantitative assessment.</p>","PeriodicalId":100132,"journal":{"name":"Asia‐Pacific Economic History Review","volume":"62 1","pages":"26-46"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-07-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1111/aehr.12222","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48642522","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Research in business history: From theorising to bizhismetrics","authors":"Abe De Jong","doi":"10.1111/aehr.12221","DOIUrl":"10.1111/aehr.12221","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Empirical work is dominating business history, with a particular emphasis on case research using rich primary sources. I argue that the field of business history would benefit from a balanced combination of theoretical and empirical work. Restoring this balance requires that business historians build theories using their empirical observations. This approach – theorising – may enrich the field of business history and enhance the impact on related fields. I also argue that testing business history theory requires a broad set of empirical techniques, that is, <i>bizhismetrics</i>.</p>","PeriodicalId":100132,"journal":{"name":"Asia‐Pacific Economic History Review","volume":"62 1","pages":"66-79"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-07-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1111/aehr.12221","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47732605","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Alan de Bromhead, Alan Fernihough, Markus Lampe, Kevin Hjortshøj O'Rourke
{"title":"Four great Asian trade collapses","authors":"Alan de Bromhead, Alan Fernihough, Markus Lampe, Kevin Hjortshøj O'Rourke","doi":"10.1111/aehr.12215","DOIUrl":"10.1111/aehr.12215","url":null,"abstract":"<p>This paper introduces a new dataset of commodity-specific, bilateral import data for four large Asian economies in the interwar period: China, the Dutch East Indies, India and Japan. It uses these data to describe the interwar trade collapses in the economies concerned. These resembled the post-2008 Great Trade Collapse in some respects but not in others: they occurred along the intensive margin, imports of cars were particularly badly affected, and imports of durable goods fell by more than those of non-durables, except in China and India which were rapidly industrialising. On the other hand the import declines were geographically imbalanced, while prices were more important than quantities in driving the overall collapse.</p>","PeriodicalId":100132,"journal":{"name":"Asia‐Pacific Economic History Review","volume":"61 2","pages":"159-185"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1111/aehr.12215","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"39328647","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Commodity boom-bust cycles and the resource curse in Australia: 1900 to 2007","authors":"Sambit Bhattacharyya","doi":"10.1111/aehr.12219","DOIUrl":"10.1111/aehr.12219","url":null,"abstract":"<p>The Australian economy experienced very frequent and sizeable terms of trade shocks. These shocks at times were more pronounced than commodity exporting developing countries and disproportionately benefited the extreme top end of income distribution. Did they derail overall economic progress? Circumstantial evidence suggests that they did not, but hard econometric evidence appears to be rare. In this paper, I revisit the Australian resource curse question from a long-run perspective. Using time series data on commodity prices, real GDP, real wages, non-farm GDP, manufacturing share of GDP, and manufacturing share of employment covering the period 1900 to 2007, I find very little evidence of a resource curse. Commodity booms in general and positive agricultural price shocks in particular appear to have impacted the rest of the economy positively both in short- and long-run. The positive effect is primarily led by expansion in manufacturing. This is perhaps reflective of trade protection, labour and credit market flexibility, and relatively open skilled migration in Australia especially during the post-war period.</p>","PeriodicalId":100132,"journal":{"name":"Asia‐Pacific Economic History Review","volume":"61 2","pages":"186-203"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1111/aehr.12219","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42854265","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}