and 4.
The role of foreign trade in the early phases of the MEG still warrants an empirical examination; for instance, to see the extent to which it served as a demand-pull factor of economic growth, etc. Related here perhaps is the policy choice between import substitution vs. export promotion. Also, how important was the role of international capital inflow? The Korean path, for instance, was quite different in this regard from that of other nations inclusive of Japan.
Population
No doubt population forms a highly important area of investigation in the ASHSTAT. A study by Takahashi (1997) of North-eastern Thai-villages indicates that there is, contrary to the previously accepted view, apparently a rational mechanism which works in such a way that any unbalances between population and economic well being will be adjusted after some time; in the farming age, the mechanism worked by way of (1) expanding arable land area and (2) making use of off-farm employment possibilities (e.g. participating in commercial activities, day employment in urban districts, working as unpaid family workers, etc.). After the beginning of industrialisation, however, the population transition set in; the rise in the cost of raising children, as well as the decline in death rates due to the introduction of modern medicine and improved sanitary conditions, shifted emphasis from quantity to quality in human investment, thus suppressing pressures on birth rateS.
Unemployment
Economic development in East Asia seems to have experienced the coexistence of both abundance and shortage of labour. While labour is abundant in villages during the slack season, for instance, there are ample opportunities for the seasonally abundant labour to engage itself in within-the-farm, non-agricultural activities. On the other hand, the agricultural demand for labour regularly repeats seasonal ups and downs. Labour supply is therefore quite abundant in the annual averages, and yet realises more-than-a-full employment status during the peak season (see Sen 1966).
