Seminar
RHI Seminar: The First East Asian Economic Miracle: Wages, Living Standards and Foundations of Modern Economic Growth in Southeast Asia, 1880-1938
We happily invite you to the RHI Seminar of October. Our speaker for this month is Jean-Pascal Bassino, Professor of Economics at École Normale Supérieure de Lyon, France. He will be presenting his paper titled: 'The First East Asian Economic Miracle: Wages, Living Standards and Foundations of Modern Economic Growth in Southeast Asia, 1880-1938''
The seminar will take place in room B0073 in the Leeuwenborch. Hope to see you there!
Abstract:
This paper presents new estimates of the living standards of unskilled and skilled wage earners in Southeast Asia. It estimates welfare ratios in eleven Asian cities (Bangkok, Canton, Hanoi, Jakarta, Madras, Manila, Penang, Rangoon, Seoul, Saigon, Singapore, Surabaya, Taipei and Tokyo) during 1880-1938 and compares them to those in Milan and Paris. It finds that welfare ratios in most Southeast Asian cities were close to the Italian and Japanese levels, and that wage premia for skilled labour were higher than in Europe and Japan. These findings suggest that there was a sustained strong demand for skilled workers, as well as savings potentials and opportunities for the development of markets beyond basic commodities. Some implications in terms of determinants of inward migration from China and India are considered. The paper synthesises these findings to argue that some of the foundations of modern economic growth were being established before World War II.