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6 - Sustainable Development in South East Asia

from Part I - Regional Developments

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 June 2021

By
Jean-Pascal Bassino
Edited by
Stephen Broadberry  and
Kyoji Fukao
Stephen Broadberry
Affiliation:
University of Oxford
Kyoji Fukao
Affiliation:
Hitotsubashi University, Tokyo
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Summary

Early modern South East Asia can be characterized as a region of low population density, abundant natural resources, and high labour productivity in agriculture, where coastal areas were deeply involved in international trade, in particular with China and India. Available information on urban real wages indicates that in most parts of the region, living standards were well above Chinese and Indian levels until at least the mid-nineteenth century. The population growth observed throughout the region in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries suggests also a strong resilience to climate shocks and wars. The main independent indigenous polities in the mainland and a few smaller ones in the archipelago reinforced their authority, legitimacy, and capacity. An increase or stability in the long run of per capita terms comprehensive wealth, which is the total value of natural, human, and physical (i.e. produced) capital stocks divided by total population, would imply a sustainable economic transformation. The general trends that can be observed suggest that this was the case in early modern South East Asia.

Keywords

sustainable developmentpopulation densitynatural endowmentsinternational tradestate capacitymonetizationurbanizationChinese immigrantshuman capitalcolonization
Type
Chapter
Information
The Cambridge Economic History of the Modern World , pp. 146 - 168
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2021

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