Simon Kuznets

Economic development, the family, and income distribution : selected essays

Preface Louis Galambos and Robert Gallman Foreword Richard A. Easterlin 1. Driving forces of economic growth: what can we learn from history? 2. A note on production structure and aggregate growth 3. The pattern of shift of labor force from agriculture, 1950-70 4. Modern economic growth and the less developed countries 5. Notes on demographic change 6. Recent population trends in less developed countries and implications for internal income inequality 7. Demographic aspects of the size distrubution of income: an exploratory essay 8. Size and age structure of family households: exploratory comparisons 9. Size of households and income disparities 10. Distributions of households by size: differences and trends 11. Children and adults in the income distribution Afterword Robert William Fogel Bibliography of Simon Kuznets Index.

Notes on the Take-Off

The sequence of stages, of which the take-off is one, is offered by Professor Rostow as a scheme for viewing and interpreting modern economic development. It is, therefore, a gloss on the major distinction between modern and non-modern (traditional) types of growth; and I regret that in offering his scheme, Professor Rostow does not spell out the characteristics that are inherent in modern economic growth and distinguish it from the traditional and other types. Many come easily to mind: a high and sustained rate of increase in real product per capita, accompanied in most cases by a high and sustained rate of increase in population; major shifts in the industrial structure of product and labour force, and in the location of the population, commonly referred, to as industrialization and urbanization; changes in the organizational units under whose auspices and guidance economic activity takes place; a rise in the proportion of capital formation to national product; shifts in the structure of consumer expenditures, accompanying urbanization and higher income per capita; changes in the character and magnitudes of international economic flows; and others that could be added. Behind all this is the increasing stock of useful knowledge derived from modern science, and the capacity of society, under the spur of modern ideology, to evolve institutions which permit a greater exploitation of the growth potential provided by that increasing stock of knowledge.

Quantitative Aspects of the Economic Growth of Nations: IX. Level and Structure of Foreign Trade: Comparisons for Recent Years

In Papers I-VIII of this series we dealt with quantitative aspects of the economic growth of nations related to aggregates (Paper I) or internal structure-the significantly different components within a nations total economic performance: industrial sectors (Papers II and III), factor shares (Paper IV), the shares and structure of capital formation and consumption (Papers V, VI, and VII), and the distribution of income by size among various population groups (Paper VIII). In all except Paper III, measures and discussion covered many nations, and in that sense, the comparisons were international, or rather, multinational. But only incidental reference was made to ties, competitive or cooperative, among nations, except in connection with the possible effects of rapidly widening differences in aggregate growth (in Paper I) and with the foreign financing of capital formation (in Papers V and VI). Yet these international ties are obviously important in the analysis of economic growth, since they affect the development of all countries. They are explicitly considered here and their contribution to the growth process is evaluated on the basis of the volume and structure of the resulting international economic flows.

Quantitative Aspects of the Economic Growth of Nations: IV. Distribution of National Income by Factor Shares

i. Compensation of employees--all wages, salaries, and supplements, whether in cash or kind, to normal residents employed by private and public enterprises, households and non-profit institutions, and general government. It also includes labor income paid by the rest of the world to the countrys normal residents and compensation of members of armed forces stationed abroad, overseas diplomatic and consular staffs, and employees on ships and aircraft of domestic carriers. The earnings are recorded before payment of taxes and deduction of social security contributions. Payments by employers to social security agencies on behalf of employees are considered part of the flow.

The State as a Unit in Study of Economic Growth

Empirical study of a process of change requires a definition of characteristics of change to be measured, and of units for which the measurable characteristics are to be observed. The choice of characteristics was discussed in “Measurement of Economic Growth,†and in that discussion the state was assumed to be the unit of observation. The purpose here is to explore the implications of that assumption, thus in a sense providing a lengthy footnote to the earlier paper.

Measurement of Economic Growth

By a nations economic growth we understand a sustained increase in its magnitude as an economic unit. Conversely, stagnation and decline can be defined as a sustained failure of the nations economic magnitude to increase, or as its persistent decline.

Quantitative Aspects of the Economic Growth of Nations: V. Capital Formation Proportions: International Comparisons for Recent Years

In this paper, the fifth in the series, 1 we assemble comparative data on capital formation and its components, in relation to national product. A brief discussion of definitions and their limitations is followed by international comparisons for the recent post-World War II years. Because of the quantity of data to be covered and the length of the present paper, the long-term records, available for a much smaller number of countries, will be analyzed in the next paper in the series.

International Differences in Income Levels: Reflections on Their Causes

Recent changes in the world scene have produced a feeling of greater involvement of all countries with each other, a keener interest in their diverse economic and social structures and functions. When events in a remote corner of the globe affect the lives and destinies of people thousands of miles away, we cannot easily retain the feelings of separateness and independence that may have characterized our thinking half a century ago. Concurrently, the closer linking of the world, in peace and in war, in international organization and in military conflict, has resulted in more information and in a greater effort to reduce the apparent qualitative differences in life around the globe to some comparable, measurable basis. The marked recent increase in quantitative data on population, health, food supply, industrial production, and income is in response to a natural urge to measure the similarities and differences in the social and economic structures of various nations; and to provide for national and international policy a more reliable basis than can be supplied by impressions of travelers, qualitative accounts of historians, or appraisals of geographers.

Quantitative Aspects of the Economic Growth of Nations: III. Industrial Distribution of Income and Labor Force by States, United States, 1919-1921 to 1955

In the second paper in this series we discussed the industrial distributions of the national product and labor force of different countries, using both cross-section analysis for recent years and time series. The aim of these international comparisons was to study the changes in these industrial distributions that accompanied economic growth, i. e., a rise in per capita income, and the resultant shifts in the intersectoral differentials in product per worker.

Notes on Income Distribution in Taiwan

Publisher Summary This chapter reviews the income distribution among households in Taiwan since the mid-1960s. The effort to secure firm findings on changes in distribution of incomes that approximate long-term levels and are related to proper recipient units, encountered various difficulties, some of which are described in the chapter. The family household, in its complexity and variability through the life cycle and in its capacity to diversify its productive activity in response to undesirable shifts in income earning opportunities induced by economic growth, is the key unit in the analysis of the income distribution. Such complexity and variability over a long span of the life cycle means also large demands for long-term data on income, which would link the changing production structure of the economy in the process of its economic growth with changing structure of family households as decision units on the earning and use of income. Further study may qualify even this general statement, particularly by revealing interrelations among households, differing among societies, and over time in the extent to which larger groupings, often blood related, may set the norms for member households. But one can only speculate on what such further study might reveal.