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Boom-or-Bust Commodities and Industrialization in Pre–World War II Malaya

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 January 2003

W. G. Huff
W. G. Huff*
Affiliation:
Department of Economics, Adam Smith Building, University of Glasgow, Glasgow G12 8RT, Scotland. E-mail: w.g.huff@socsci.gla.ac.uk. Telephone ++ 141 330 5354.
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Abstract

This article links the terms of trade, money supply, labor market, and money and credit markets to explore a puzzle in Malayan economic history: why, despite rapid growth and high per capita income, did pre–World War II Malaya industrialize so little? A range of data is drawn together to show how for Malayan manufacturers economic boom was accompanied by precipitate deterioration in the real exchange rate, while in a slump credit contracted sharply and with it the size of the Malayan market for manufactures. Analysis of Malayan experience may be relevant for understanding slight industrialization elsewhere in Southeast Asia.

Type
Articles
Information
The Journal of Economic History , Volume 62 , Issue 4 , December 2002 , pp. 1074 - 1115
Copyright
Copyright © The Economic History Association 2002

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