Taiwan's Economic Development

Subject | Humanities & Social Sciences, Business & Management

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Taiwan
Economic Development

The class is taught in English and will examine Taiwan’s economic development from about 1860 to the present. The course will be organized topically (and roughly chronologically). After a brief look at Taiwan’s early history, we will start by examining Taiwan’s important crops (tea, sugar and rice) and how they contributed to Taiwan’s development. Then we will look at gold mining and hat manufacturing to see what they show us concerning the early Taiwan way of doing business. We will then look at the controlled wartime (and cold-wartime) economy. The focus then will turn to Taiwan’s rise as a manufacturing power. We will look at the rise of consumer exports in the 1960s and 1970s, the attempt to move into heavy industry and the successful development of the electronics industry. Finally, we will look at Taiwan’s outward foreign investment and what the future may hold for Taiwan. Overall, the course argues that Taiwan’s comparative advantage has been its flexibility and the quickness with which Taiwanese businesspeople have reacted to market change.