Journal Article Capital Theory and Developmental Planning Get access Ronald Findlay Ronald Findlay Rangoon Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar The Review of Economic Studies, Volume 29, Issue 2, February 1962, Pages 85–98, https://doi.org/10.2307/2295816 Published: 01 February 1962

Economic Growth and the Distributive Shares Get access Ronald Findlay Ronald Findlay Rangoon and Massachusetts Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar The Review of Economic Studies, Volume 27, Issue 3, June 1960, Pages 167–178, https://doi.org/10.2307/2296078 Published: 01 June 1960

Journal Article Relative Backwardness, Direct Foreign Investment, and the Transfer of Technology: A Simple Dynamic Model Get access Ronald Findlay Ronald Findlay Columbia University and Institute for International Studies, Stockholm Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Volume 92, Issue 1, February 1978, Pages 1–16, https://doi.org/10.2307/1885996 Published: 01 February 1978

Journal Article International Specialization and the Concept of Balanced Growth: Comment Get access Ronald Findlay Ronald Findlay Massachusetts Institute of Technology Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Volume 73, Issue 2, May 1959, Pages 339–346, https://doi.org/10.2307/1883732 Published: 01 May 1959

Now that Japan has overtaken and surpassed in arts of manufacture, it is perhaps possible to look at familiar old problem of the rise of West in a more sober and less exclusively Eurocentric way. No longer is it possible to imagine some unique set of individual and social characteristics that gave Western society an inherent superiority over others in realm of economic organization and its associated scientific and technological base. The Protestant ethic or the spirit of rational inquiry can no longer be regarded as unique to this one civilization, not only in light of recent economic performance of East Asia but because of what is now known about its past achievements in these fields as a result of research of Joseph Needham and others. Yet fact remains that indeed dominated world since at least time of European voyages of discovery around turn of 15th century, with English Industrial Revolution of 18th century consolidating its dominance and raising it to a higher level. Recognizing early achievements of other civilizations only makes it harder to account in any satisfactory way for phenomenon. It is convenient to begin with voyages of discovery themselves. It is easy to imagine them as manifesting qualities and achievements of Renaissance, bold new ideas about nature of world and their application to nautical technology and navigation. Yet all basic inventions that they utilized were transmitted to either from China (the compass and stern-post rudder, as well as gunpowder and cannon used in their predatory engagements) or from Arabs (the form of lateen sail and knowledge of winds and currents of Indian Ocean). Can one not say, however, that only could have put it all together in mounting of such long-distance ocean voyages in 15th century? The answer of course is that Chinese did precisely mount an amazing sequence of seven great voyages, over period 1405-1433, when they sent fleets of hundreds of great junks with crews of over 30,000 at a time, to Java, Sumatra, Cambodia, Ceylon, India, Persian Gulf, Red Sea, Kenya, Somalia, Madagascar, and Mozambique. Several of Chinese ships were in excess of 1,500 tons, while largest of Vasco da Gama's ships did not exceed 300 tons. Thus, there is no question that Chinese had capability to do what Portuguese did, in opposite direction. Why didn't they? In this connection, it is necessary to consider incentives in addition to capabilities. When asked what he was looking for in India, Vasco da Gama was reputed to have answered, Christians and spices, though perhaps order should have been reversed. The spice trade, based on intense need for pepper and other spices to preserve meat in Europe, had been a lucrative one for centuries. Brought from India and islands of Indonesian archipelago by Arab and Indian ships to Red Sea and Persian Gulf, spices reached Europe through intermediaries of Egyptian Mamelukes at Cairo and Venice. It was basis for centuries of unparalleled wealth (in Europe) of great maritime republic, jealously guarded against encroachments of rival Genoa. The motives for prolonged exploration for a passage around Cape of Good Hope, instigated by Prince Henry Navigator, * Department of Economics, Columbia University, 420 W. 118th St., New York, NY 10027.

Recently the major issue in the international aspects of economic development has been the so-called dialogue in connection with the UN resolutions calling for a New International Economic Order. The intellectual basis for the proposed reforms, in so far as one exists, appears to lie in the well-known writings of Raul Prebisch and Hans Singer. Both of them argue that there is a fundamental asymmetry in the workings of the global economic system which biases the resulting income distribution in favor of the industrial North and against the predominantly primary producing South. Neither writer has been successful in putting forward convincing arguments for such asymmetry. The standard trade theory of the HeckscherOhlin variety is usually presented in such a way that countries A and B are identical in all respects except for a difference in factor proportions that leads to pretrade product and factor-price differentials that are removed by free trade. There is no room for any asymmetry here. It would therefore seem to be both relevant and interesting to construct and investigate models that exhibit the PrebischSinger asymmetry at the level of rigor that generally prevails in pure trade theory. The rest of this paper will present two examples of such models from current research. The first consists of a simple diagrammatic exposition of an interesting but heavily mathematical paper by Murray Kemp and M. Ohyama and the second outlines the essential features of an approach to the analysis of North-South economic relations found in my earlier paper. 1. The Kemp-Ohyama Model