 Lewis Growth Model and China's IndustrializationNazrul Islam and Kazuhiko Yokota Asian Economic Journal, 2008, vol. 22, issue 4, 359-396 Abstract: This paper examines China's industrialization in the light of the Lewis growth model. It begins with a perusal of Lewis's own writings and those of Fei and Ranis to clarify certain assumptions and predictions of the Lewis model. The paper then reviews previous applications of the Lewis model in studying industrialization of other countries, and notes the methodological problems that arise in this regard. In applying the Lewis model to study China's industrialization, the paper focuses on the dynamic relationship between wage and marginal product of labor in the traditional sector. For this purpose, the paper estimates a production function for China's agricultural sector using province level data and compares the estimated marginal product of labor with the corresponding wage of the sector. The results show that the marginal product has been increasing (from below) at a faster pace than the wage, as is predicted by the Lewis model. The results indicate that China as a whole is steadily moving toward the Lewis Turning Point. Date: 2008 Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:bla:asiaec:v:22:y:2008:i:4:p:359-396 Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from Access Statistics for this article Asian Economic Journal is currently edited by Sung Yun-Wing and Shigeyuki Abe More articles in Asian Economic Journal from East Asian Economic Association Contact information at EDIRC. |
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