THIRD WORLD ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT

Abstract

The development experiences of Third World countries since the fifties have been staggeringly diverse—and hence very informative. Forty years ago the developing countries looked a lot more like each other than they do today. Take India and South Korea. By any standards, both countries were extremely poor: India's income per capita was about $150 (in 1980 dollars) and South Korea's was about $350. Life expectancy was about forty years and fifty years respectively. In both countries, roughly 70 percent of the people worked on the land, and farming accounted for 40 percent of national income. The two countries were so far behind the industrial world that it seemed nearly inconceivable that either could ever attain reasonable standards of living, let alone catch up. This article examines the experiences of different countries.