TY - JOUR
T1 - Globalization, immigration, and Lewisian elastic labor in pre-World War II Southeast Asia
AU - Huff, Gregg
AU - Caggiano, Giovanni
PY - 2007/3
Y1 - 2007/3
N2 - Between 1880 and 1939 Burma, Malaya, and Thailand received inflows of migrants from India and China comparable in size to European immigration in the New World. This article examines the forces that lay behind migration to Southeast Asia and asks if experience there bears out Lewis's unlimited labor supply hypothesis. We find that it does and, furthermore, that immigration created a highly integrated labor market stretching from South India to Southeastern China. Emigration from India and China and elastic labor supply are identified as important components of Asian globalization before the Second World War.
AB - Between 1880 and 1939 Burma, Malaya, and Thailand received inflows of migrants from India and China comparable in size to European immigration in the New World. This article examines the forces that lay behind migration to Southeast Asia and asks if experience there bears out Lewis's unlimited labor supply hypothesis. We find that it does and, furthermore, that immigration created a highly integrated labor market stretching from South India to Southeastern China. Emigration from India and China and elastic labor supply are identified as important components of Asian globalization before the Second World War.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=33947639524&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1017/S0022050707000022
DO - 10.1017/S0022050707000022
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:33947639524
SN - 0022-0507
VL - 67
SP - 33
EP - 68
JO - The Journal of Economic History
JF - The Journal of Economic History
IS - 1
ER -
