Economic Take-off Research Articles

Entrepreneurial mobility in the development of the Austrian Kurorte in the nineteenth century

In the course of the nineteenth century some hydrothermal resorts, mainly located in the Austrian Alpine area and frequented by guests with modest incomes, managed to emerge from a situation of stagnation in which they were used only by the local population and their fame was confined to only a circumscribed geographical area, to assume the role of centres of international attraction. Several of these spas and health resorts developed through stages that were in many respects similar. These Kurorte attained their most substantial growth when they managed to achieve a business synergy between local and external economic forces interested in their development. The study of some cases of success reveals that there could be several forms of collaboration between external and local business interests and with the active involvement of the local public administration, which aimed at adjusting supply to demand. On the other hand, when the aim of entrepreneurship and capital from outside was not so much development of the Kurort as the marketing of a product produced at the spa, thus, when supply sought to impose new paradigms, which were to be accepted by demand, the Kurorte did not achieve any effective economic take-off.

A note on trade and trade centers in the eastern and northern Adriatic region between the eighth and the ninth Century

Ever since Henri Pirenne has introduced trade to the discipline as a means of understanding the economic take-off of Western Europe, the tendency has been to see commercial relations and centers as key components of the political and cultural landscape of early medieval Europe. Some have claimed that the sudden burst of “exotic” artifacts—swords, winged lance heads, censers, reliquaries—in burial assemblages in Croatia represent the “spillover” of a much more extensive Venetian export of goods. The distribution of eighth- and ninth- century Byzantine coins on the eastern coast of the Adriatic Sea has also been used as evidence for commercial relations between cities on that coast and the regions in southern Italy, which, like Dalmatia were at that time under Byzantine control. However, very little is known about the Dalmatian cities (Zadar, Trogir, Split, Dubrovnik, Kotor, and Ulcini) during that period, besides what is revealed by the analysis of still-standing monuments, such as the Church of St. Tryphon in Kotor. To date no pottery assemblages have been published from any excavation on urban sites in Croatia or Montenegro. On the basis of the existing evidence, the interpretation of artifacts of clearly foreign—especially Frankish—origin in burial assemblages in the region of Croatia between Cetina and Zrmanja needs to be re-assessed in the light of what little is known about the Frankish encroachment into the western Balkans and the war with Byzantium in the early ninth century.

Eléments d'une stratégie de stabilisation au Sud de personnel qualifié et de chercheurs

Seront étudiées quelques pistes offertes aux pays du Sud pour enrayer l'exode des cerveaux, priorité indispensable pour enclencher un décollage économique. D'abord renforcer l'enseignement supérieur local par la promotion de filiêres d'excellence, la diversification des voies proposées et l'acceptation, sans tabou mais avec garanties, d'universités privées aux atouts et aux handicaps désormais bien connus. Contribuer aussi au financement des études des étudiants méritants, gérer efficacement la mobilité étudiante et enseignante, et enfin offrir de véritables débouchés professionnels aux diplômés. Dans cet esprit, il importe que ces pays développent des pôles de recherche et d'investissement rassemblant entreprises, universités et laboratoires, en recourant à des modalités variées de partenariats: appui au développement d'entreprises, exportation de formation, coopération de recherche interuniversitaire, réseaux de diasporas..., les options sont nombreuses au Nord, de collaboration sur projets et de participation à des programmes de développement. La promotion de ces pôles devrait articuler divers types de financements: flux financiers des migrants, apport de fonds privés et d'entreprises, programmes institutionnels, crédits publics nationaux. Il convient par ailleurs de ne pas négliger l'éducation primaire et secondaire et de promouvoir une pédagogie ouverte, développant la curiosité intellectuelle, l'esprit critique en lançant des initiatives originales comme l'opération "La main à la pâte" en France. Le recours aux délocalisations dans les pays du Nord aura forcément pour corollaire des chances de développement pour le Sud, assurant ainsi un meilleur équilibre mondial.

ECONOMIC GROWTH AND TRANSITION: A STOCHASTIC TECHNOLOGICAL DIFFUSION MODEL

This paper constructs a stochastic growth model that anchors on technology diffusion and improvement in social infrastructure to explain the growth of developing countries. The model is based on the technological diffusion model by Barro and Sala-i-Martin (1997) with two significant extensions: the (productivity) parameter in the model which represents social infrastructure is being endogenized and probability of adverse shocks is being incorporated. The stochastic technological diffusion model is able to explain the various economic growth and transition phases of developing economies. Technology diffusion is modeled as the determinant of conditional convergence, while technological progress and economic openness further strengthen the social infrastructure bringing about absolute convergence. The model is also able to explain why some developing economies experience economic take-off while others do not.

Location Is (Not) Everything: Re-Assessing Shanghai’s Rise, 1840s -1860s

While Shanghai’s pre-war history (1842-1937) is thought to be already ‘quite well understood’ thanks to an inordinately large number of studies, other Chinese urban centres received less attention. Consequently, a number of Western scholars have recently shifted their gaze elsewhere in search of other Chinese articulations of modernity. Yet a thorough examination of the history of other Chinese cities cannot replace a continual robust engagement with Shanghai. This is not least because the vast array of materials available at the Shanghai Municipal Archives and Zikawei Library has been systematically catalogued only over the last few years. They are indispensable to understanding the city’s rise to prominence and its preponderant position within China’s economic modernisation process.
 
 Mainly drawing on rare early editions of the North-China Herald held at the Zikawei Library, this article highlights one aspect of Shanghai’s early treaty-port development; it reprises the conventional wisdom positing that, because of its perceived advantageous location, Shanghai had been almost deterministically poised to become China’s gateway to the outside world following the First Opium War (1839-1842). Instead, it argues that location was significant but not sufficient of itself in delivering Shanghai’s economic take-off.

Towards a rational strategy for the human settlement of space

This paper revisits the core issues of space policy from the viewpoint of optimal decision theory. First it argues for a metric: maximizing the probability that humans and their technology in space someday reach what Rostow called the “economic takeoff” point where autonomous growth becomes possible, not bound by the rate of growth on earth. Next it discusses three concrete requirements to reach that point: benefits to earth which exceed costs to earth, large and diverse enough “exports” from space to earth, and advancements in technology and infrastructure. Energy from space (ES) is now one of the most promising export possibilities, based on what was learned in the last open US government effort on that topic, “JIETSSP,” led jointly by NSF and NASA. I review several options for ES, and propose a new one which, while slightly riskier, offers real hope of electricity at a price that could compete with coal and fission-plus-enrichment.

Introduction: Women, Mobilities, Immobilities and Empowerment

The articles in this volume are collated from field studies in East and Southeast Asia on several key aspects of women's experiences related to work and mobility. They highlight a range of issues based on women's labor as migrants, whose social or biological, paid or unpaid labor, are structural continuities that characterize the nature of women's role and status within households and families across cultural systems in East and Southeast Asia. The articles in this volume demonstrate how contemporary developments in work and mobility affect women migrants from developing countries. The 21st century has been said to be one that will see the rise and dominance of Asia. To fuel this systemic economic takeoff implies an increase in human flows within and to this region to respond to demographic and economic differentials across the region. Against this backdrop, this volume discusses the role that women in migration play as foreign wives, domestic workers and seasonal rural to urban migrants. It maps some of the issues that they confront in destination countries, as well as in their own homes as absent wives, mothers and daughters in expanded networks of global householding. On another level, this volume frames the overseas employment and settlement of women migrants in destination countries, in the contexts of contestations between States, organized labor exporters and emergent migrant women's movements, which for migrant women represent their individual and collective strategies for making a ‘bare life’1 (Agamben, 1998:177, 180) liveable. The studies here underscore the potential that migration offers to women in this region, while highlighting the complexities and contradictions in labor supply and its relationship to politics, culture and capital.

Seasonal variations in elemental composition of aerosols in Xiamen, China

Rapid industrialization and economic take-off in coastal cities of China have placed great strain on the environment. In the this study, 40 aerosol samples were collected in the coast of Xiamen, Fujian province, west Taiwan Strait, P. R. China, from January to December 2003. The samples were analysed for the concentrations of elements (K, Ca, Na, Zn, Pb, W, Se, As, Ni, Ba, Nb, Ta, Zr, Hf, Th, U, Sr, REEs, etc.). All the elements display significant seasonal variations. The concentrations of most of the elements (except Na and Se) were high in January and February, abruptly decreased in March, kept relatively constant but low from April to August, and then gradually increased from September to December. This corresponds to the rainless climate and the influence of biomass burning from Southeast Asia in the winter and rain scavenging and the diffusion of typhoon in the summer. Thus, most of the elements have a good negative correlation with the monthly precipitation. The SEM/EDX studies indicate that the aerosols of Xiamen mainly consisted of soot grains, clay minerals, feldspar, gypsum, quartz, and biological particulates. The calculated enrichment factors indicate that Na and Br are derived from ocean, Pb, Zn, As, Sb, Se, W, and Ni are anthropogenic elements mainly derived from coal combustion, vehicle exhaust, and mining, and the other elements (i.e., Zr, Fe, Cr, Co, Rb, Sr, Cs, Ba, Hf, Ta, Th, U, and REEs) are crustal elements derived from weathered rocks and soil dust. The elemental concentrations of aerosols in Xiamen were compared with other cities, and the results indicate that Xiamen, like other coastal cities such as Qingdao, Dalian, Hong Kong, and Tokyo, has much lower concentrations of the elements such as Pb, Zn, and Cr than Beijing. The elemental deposition fluxes in Xiamen were also compared to other cities. The comparisons indicate that the elemental deposition fluxes in these cities are influenced not only by climatic characteristics (e.g., the precipitation and the sandstorm), but also by the industrial facility denseness.

Knowledge and Growth in the Very Long-Run

This paper proposes a theory for the gradual evolution of knowledge diffusion and growth over the very long run. A feedback mechanism between capital accumulation and the ease of knowledge diffusion explains a long epoch of (quasi-) stasis and an epoch of high growth linked by a gradual economic take-off. It is shown how the feedback mechanism can explain the Great Divergence, the failure of less developed countries to attract capital from abroad, and a productivity slowdown in fully developed countries. An extension towards a two-region world economy shows robustness of the gradual take-off and other interesting interaction between forerunners and followers of the Industrial Revolution.

Les relations entre santé, développement et réduction de la pauvreté

This article starts with the observation of a non-linear relationship between health progress and economic development. This relationship is interpreted as resulting from a bidirectional interaction between these two variables, which may lead a country to a poverty trap or, alternatively, to a virtuous circle of economic take-off. Emerging countries have pulled out of poverty after having made progress in health and education. African countries still lag behind in this respect, and their backwardness has been worsened by the HIV/AIDS crisis. This analysis contributes to justifying the current emphasis on aid policies to the health sector in Africa. However, improving health conditions, and escaping the poverty trap, cannot be done just by increasing health budgets. More emphasis should be put on necessary reforms to improve efficiency and equity in health policies. To cite this article: J.-C. Berthélemy, C. R. Biologies 331 (2008).

Incrementando Las Relaciones Comerciales Entre Colombia Y China

After the reforms of the late 1970s, China achieved such a strong economic take-off that it was able to consolidate into one of today's most important markets worldwide, catching the attention of business people and researchers around the globe. In Colombia few studies have been conducted to examine commercial relations with China. In this respect, this paper provides a thorough review of statistical sources and bibliographical references, shedding light on the characteristics of and the factors affecting bilateral commercial relations. It shows that, although China is an important supplier of goods to Colombia, exports to that country remain below their potential, thus generating a huge commercial deficit. It also shows that Colombian exports to China focus on a limited number of products and, given the size and potential of the Chinese economy, Colombia should begin commercial negotiations with China for the purpose of signing a free trade agreement that would make it possible to increase trade between both countries.

Fairer Trade & The Human Right to Development -- A Perfect Match or Misconceived Twins

This paper examines a critical issue in the relationship between trade liberalisation and human rights -- the relationship between fair trade and the human right to development. Specifically, this paper analyses the failure of the identical twins -- the well intended “Special and Differential” (“S&D”) treatment in the global trading system and the right to development -- both born out of the same struggle for an NIEO. It is argued that neither has worked for countries that are desperate for an economic take-off and a meaningful realisation of the right to development and, hence, some fundamental but not necessarily radical re-thinking is required for the identical twins to work in practice.

Chandler and Business History in Japan

The work and ideas of Alfred D.Chandler Jr. have enriched the field of Japanese business history and our understanding of that nation's industrial development. Chandler's studies about the rise of the large, professionally managed, multidivisional firm in the United States highlight factors critical not only to the United States' capitalist system but also to Japan's. Indeed, large firms played a dominant role in Japan's economic takeoff in the late 1800s. As these companies grew, they were transformed into professionally managed corporations. Managers, operating in a clear hierarchical chain of command, built up huge companies, such as Nihon Denki (NEC), Toshiba, Mitsubishi Electric, Hitachi, Nippon Steel, Matsushita, and Toyota. In Japanese as in U.S. firms, the visible hand of management was critical to controlling the flow of work, from the input of raw materials to the production of finished goods.

How Regional Policies Can Affect Growth: A Macroeconometric Model for the Southern Italian Regions

Can regional policies accelerate the convergence path of dualistic economic growth in a single country, offsetting market failures and making growth transmission channels more efficient? A structural dynamic econometric model has been set up in order to account for these changes. Three are the main sources of growth playing a role in this context: the ‘neighbourhood’ effect, the interaction between the economic environment and the agents’ expectations, and the policy impact on economic take-off. The evidence shows that policies strongly boost economic growth of a local area and narrow the gap between the regions of a dual economy.

The Evolution of South Korea's Rural Institutions: The Political Economy of Export Promotion and Market Protection

South Korea's economic takeoff in the 1960s triggered a scholarly debate over the causes behind its economic growth. Neoclassical economists and “statist” scholars focused on government policies toward the industrial sector, but as this article shows, they have neglected to consider the political economy behind the government's targeting of the agricultural and livestock sectors for export promotion. In fact, the South Korean government's support of export-led growth—aimed at the rural sector as well as industry—transformed the nation's agricultural and livestock institutions from instruments of development and export promotion into protectionist mechanisms. This article discusses how complete market liberalization would have resulted in more efficient resource allocation and reveals how political considerations affected the institutional arrangement in the South Korean countryside and the subsequent liberalization of agricultural and beef markets.

China's Relations with its Neighbours

It is a measure of China's vastness and its geographic dominance of east Asia that it shares land borders with 14 countries and maritime boundaries with several others. This article doesn't attempt to examine China's relations with all of its neighbours. Instead, it offers some preliminary observations about patterns and trends in its regional and tactics, with an emphasis on those areas where we differ with the conventional wisdom on these subjects. Citing Chinese actions and statements, too often ignored, this article argues that that we must assess Chinese regional and tactics with much more wariness and skepticism. Indeed, given a Chinese strategic culture that emphasizes secrecy, deception, and surprise, there is really no alternative.This article draws on our current ongoing research project that assesses China's dealings with its continental neighbours as well as on more general research on China's grand strategy and on its ever-evolving tactics in pursuit of its strategic goals.BACKGROUNDIt is widely acknowledged that, in the wake of the collapse of the Soviet bloc, China's relative power vis-a-vis its regional neighbours soared. Instead of confronting Soviet bloc encirclement along most of its land borders from the Russian far east to Indochina, China found itself suddenly unchallenged in continental east Asia. This surge in strategic latitude coincided with the resurgence in the early 1990s of China's unprecedented economic take-off. This was a giddy period for China's ruling elite, all the more so because it had successfully weathered the post-Tiananmen political crisis. It felt free to cast off its balance-of-power of the previous two decades and adopt instead a new highly ambitious that aimed at nothing less than regional domination that recalled the traditional tributary state system.Most notably, China turned its attention in the early 1990s to maritime east Asia, where it belligerently pursued its maritime claims and took a confrontational approach towards Japan and Taiwan in particular. Its adventurist and aggressive tactics during that period included demanding ever more sincere apologies from Japan for its actions in the second World War, punctuating its legal stance that the South China Sea is a Chinese lake by seizing Mischief Reef from the Philippines, and then, most dramatically, staging massive military exercises in 1995 and 1996 that were openly labelled a rehearsal for an invasion of Taiwan.CHINA'S CONTINENTAL POLICIESDuring that same period, China was employing a very different set of tactics towards most of its neighbours on its land borders. Seemingly gracious in unearned victory, China declared its good will and its friendship toward countries that, only months ago in some cases, had played their parts in the Soviet Union's efforts to militarily encircle China. China backed its friendly stance with conciliatory proposals to several neighbours to settle longstanding border disputes on terms so reasonable that subsequent negotiations soon yielded several agreements.Soft bordersMany analysts have cited those agreements as evidence of China's sincerity when it asserts that it seeks peace and stability, especially along its borders, because they are necessary if China is going to continue its rapid economic development uninterrupted. Be that as it may, what western analysts almost universally overlooked was that China secretly demanded a strategically significant quid pro quo for its border concessions. In interviews, two senior government officials in Kazakhstan and two senior provincial government officials in the Russian far east recounted, in virtually identical terms, how China had demanded that their jurisdictions, as part of the border demarcation package, agree to eliminate most restrictions on the movement of people and trade across the borders in both directions. With large populations and a thriving economy near these borders, China stood to benefit much more than its neighbours when measured in terms of influence. …

The approach to transforming the traditional agricultural economy: a research on the multiple paths of poverty alleviation and transformation in rural China

Transforming a traditional agricultural economy into a modern economy is one of the main themes in economic development. Through theoretical and empirical analysis, this paper finds out that the key to transformation is to raise the economic value of people, to improve human capital investment and to match the stocks of physical and human capital. China’s rural economy is on the edge of economic take-off, and different zones may pursue different paths for transformation. The source of rural poverty is not the scarcity of income or consumption, but the deficiency of education, social security, medical care and economic opportunity, which we define as “capability poverty”.

The Cambodian economy: ready for take-off?

Cambodia is facing the familiar problem of achieving sustained rates of economic growth that could help it alleviate widespread poverty. Against the background of some encouraging developments, and quite a few that are not equally reassuring, we argue that any push for development needs to consider both agriculture and industry. This is so as both labour absorption, primarily in secondary sector activities, and productivity growth in agriculture are necessary to lift large segments of the population out of the poverty associated with subsistence agriculture, landlessness and informal sector activities. Given that the major success story of the past decade – the garment and textile industry – is under threat, we conclude that Cambodia is yet to achieve an economic take-off.

REGIONAL DEVELOPMENT IN SOUTH AFRICA'S WEST COAST: ‘DIVIDENDS ON THE PROCESS SIDE’?

ABSTRACTAcademics, policy‐makers and consultants have been increasingly focusing upon the ‘region’ as the crucible of economic development. This regionalist approach places institutions at the centre of the process of stimulating growth. Much debate has been ongoing in academic circles, particularly those inhabited by economic geographers, about the veracity of the regionalist approach and the explanatory power of the terminology associated with it. This paper analyses explicit efforts to engender regional economic development in the West Coast of South Africa. Our empirical evaluation indicates that policy actors have sought to upgrade the institutional infrastructure of the region and that some significant achievements are evident within this realm. However, these achievements are yet to be associated with sustained regional economic takeoff. The paper concludes by asking searching questions about the ability of the regionalist approach to deliver meaningful socio‐economic transformation.

Economic Takeoffs in a Dynamic Process of Globalization*

AbstractThe paper develops a dynamic general‐equilibrium framework to illustrate that trade liberalization may speed up the process of globalization and industrialization by enabling a small open economy to reallocate production factors to modern export sectors where increasing returns to experience are present. The authors emphasize the role of knowledge in service activities related to the export of modern sector goods, which has the form of a public good that can be utilized in exporting of other modern sector goods. As a consequence of this knowledge accumulation, the economy begins to take off and exhibits more rapid rates of wage and output growth. The accumulation of knowledge also shifts comparative advantage in the modern sector to more service‐intensive goods, thus leading to a natural evolution of comparative advantage. These results lend theoretical support to the different development experiences in the 1960s between East Asia and Latin America.