Eddy Lee

Egalitarian peasant farming and rural development: The case of South Korea

The South Korean development experience is examined from the perspective of the rural sector. Available data appear to indicate that the performance of the rural sector has been exceptional in comparison to the rest of the developing world. Output and productivity growth have been steady and there has been no trend of increasing inequality or landlessness as has been the situation in other developing countries. This performance has occurred from a base of a thorough land reform between 1945 and 1973. The resultant agrarian structure - relatively egalitarian and homogenous - has been a primary factor in explaining the widely diffused growth in the rural economy. The effort is made to describe the primary characteristics of South Koreas agricultural system to evaluate its performance in terms of growth distribution and accumulation and to analyze the factors which explain the performance. On the basis of the Korean experience it is possible to draw some general albeit weak conclusions. A thorough-going land reform brings positive benefits in terms of both distribution and growth. Land reform in Korea resulted in a swift alleviation of absolute rural poverty and created the preconditions for widely diffused growth in a rural economy. The land reform also demonstrated that egalitarian small-scale peasant production is a viable alternative to the growth following growing concentration in land ownership within a market economy. It does need to be remembered that within the Korean agricultural system disequalizing tendencies were strong even in the context of unusually favorable circumstances and that strong countervailing measures were required on an ongoing basis.

Development and income distribution: A case study of Sri Lanka and Malaysia

Abstract This paper compares the pattern of change in the size-distribution of incomes in Sri Lanka and Malaysia and attempts to explain these changes. It also uses these case studies to illustrate some weaknesses in the ‘orthodox’ view, derived from cross-section analysis, of the relationship between economic development and income distribution in developing economies.