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Agricultural Transformation Under Colonialism: Reply and Further Observations

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 May 2010

Samuel Pao-San Ho
Affiliation:
University of British Columbia

Extract

In his comment on my 1968 article, Professor Y. M. Ho questions: (1) my selection of input measurements, (2) my explanation of the residual, and (3) my discussion of the agricultural surplus. I shall comment on each of these issues in turn.

Type
Notes
Copyright
Copyright © The Economic History Association 1971

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References

1 If this is Y. M. Ho's view, then it can be argued that he should have also excluded chemical fertilizers from his input index since it is generally agreed that the adoption of chemical fertilizers in Taiwan during the colonial period, was a major advancement in agricultural technology.

2 Data on land under fruit trees were compiled by the Rural Economic Division of the Joint Commission on Rural Reconstruction (JCRR).

3 These percentages can be easily obtained from the a's and the percentage increase of each of the inputs.

4 These and the succeeding figures are taken from budgetary data which I compiled for a larger study on the economic development of Taiwan.

5 There is some double counting here since this is a combined rather than a consolidated figure.

6 Taiwan Provincial Government, Bureau of Accounting and Statistics, Taiwan Province: Statistical Summary of the Past Fifty-One Years (Taipei, 1946), p. 1241.Google Scholar

7 Imperial Japan Statistical Yearbook, Vol. XXXIX, 1921Google Scholar, Table 353.

8 Grajdanzev, Andrew J., Formosa Today (New York: Institute of Pacific Relations, 1942), p. 167.Google Scholar

9 Taiwan Provincial Government, Taiwan Provincial Government….

10 Census Bureau, Census of 1930, Statistical Tables, Total Island, p. 513, and Taiwan Provincial Government, Bureau of Accounting and Statistics, Result of the Seventh Population Census of Taiwan, 1940, pp. 136–37.

11 For a summary of the available evidence, see U.S. Department of Agriculture, Elasticity of Food Consumption Associated with Changes in Income in Developing Countries, Foreign Agricultural Economic Report No. 23, ch. iv.

12 It is interesting to note that Kuznets found the long-run expenditure elasticities for total food in Sweden (for the period 1871–80 to 1921–30) to be 0.72 and that for the United States (for the period 1869 to 1949–57) to be 0.78. See, ibid, p. 25.

13 Taiwan Government-General, Bureau of Colonial Development, Economic Survey of Farm Families (Rice Producing Farm Families), 1934, p. 25Google Scholar; Expenditure Survey of Rice Producing Farm Families, 1938, pp. 3–5Google Scholar, and Expenditure Survey of Farm Families (Rice Producing Farm Families), 1943, pp. 4–5.Google Scholar The families that were selected for these surveys were not only rice fanning families but were also the better educated farming families (since, to carry out the survey, a certain amount of bookkeeping skills were required). We may assume therefore that these families were also better off economically. Consequently, a truly random sample of farm families would probably show farmers spending more of their total expenditure on food than these rice farmers.

14 Both price indices were obtained by dividing a value index by a Laspryres production index of similar coverage. Common food includes rice, barley, and wheat; substitute food includes sweet potatoes, sorghum, millet, Indian corn, and buckwheat. Except for rice and sweet potatoes, the others are extremely minor crops, hence their prices have little influence in the indices.

15 Taiwan Government-General, Expenditure Survey of Rice Producing Farm Families, 1938, pp. 3–5.Google Scholar

16 Kawano, Shigeto, A Study of Taiwan's Rice Economy, (Tokyo: Yuhikaku Ltd., 1941), Table 118.Google Scholar

17 Gross value of production includes production value in agriculture, forestry, fishing, mining, private manufacturing, and government manufacturing (government monopolies). These and the other data used in this paragraph are based on budgetary data which I compiled for a larger study on the economic development of Taiwan.

18 Republic of China, Executive Yuan, DGBAS, Taiwan's Gross National Product and Income (Taipei, 1955), p. 129.Google Scholar