How does a nation pull its residents out of poverty and into the developed world?
I think this is the most important question in economics,
and it's one researchers have struggled to answer to development economists.
The rise of South Korea, Japan, and Taiwan, among others.
What's often called the East Asian miracle has been a source of deep fascination.
How did these countries so quickly enter the ranks of the global elite?
On today's episode, we're going to focus on Taiwan.
How did this country go from Japanese colony to advanced industrial economy?
And what lessons does it hold for other developing nations?
Over the course of the 1950s, Taiwan's agricultural productivity took off,
setting the stage for its transition to an industrial economy.
Over essentially one decade, rice yields grew by more than 40%,
unlocking a period of rapid economic growth.
The traditional narrative is that land reforms are the key to development,
particularly a set of reforms
that redistributed land from wealthy landlords to the disaffected peasantry
and thereby increased productivity.
It's a nice story, one that puts equity and efficiency on the same side.
But a new study casts doubt onto whether this story is actually true.
This is good on paper.