Rice long dominated the agricultural economies of South-East Asia. Given the economic predominance of agriculture, the development of rice production had a significant bearing on the economies in the region. This article explains why the countries of mainland South-East Asia long dominated the international rice market. It quantifies labor productivity in rice production and argues that simple, low-cost and labor-extensive, but low-yielding production technology allowed farmers in mainland South-East Asia to achieve significantly higher levels of labor product-ivity than in the more densely populated rice-producing areas in South-East Asia and Japan. High levels of labor productivity were a major source of comparative advantage in rice production for Burma, Thailand and Southern Vietnam. Copyright 2004 East Asian Economic Association.
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Article provided by East Asian Economic Association in its journal Asian Economic Journal.
Volume (Year): 18 (2004) Issue (Month): 4 (December) Pages: 345-370 Download reference. The following formats are available: HTML
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