Economics, Economic Bureaucracy, and Taiwan's Economic Development

Abstract

ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT is a complex process, involving not only economic but also institutional, social, and political changes, and the interrelationships between the economic and the non-economic changes can be critical. An important issue is how sociocultural and political forces affect economic growth and are in turn influenced by it. Using Taiwan as a case study, this article attempts to address one small aspect of this interaction: the economic bureaucracy's role in economic development. The article is organized into three parts. Part one reviews some salient aspects of Taiwan's postwar economic performance, with particular emphasis on output growth, structural changes, and productivity growth. Part two examines the relationship between economic policy and economic development. Specifically, it argues that the implementation of land reform in 1949-1953 and the adoption of economic reforms in the late 1950s and the early 1960s were largely responsible for Taiwan's economic success in the postwar period. The article concludes by examining the role of Taiwan's economic bureaucracy in the debates on, and the formulation and implementation of, these economic policies.