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Review of Economics and Statistics
A LTERNATIVE strategies for economic causal link between imbalance and development
development have frequently invoked the in terms of external economies of vertical type
doctrines of balanced and unbalanced growth.' and in terms of decision-making which is in-
Policy recommendations in favor of balanced duced by disequilibria.3
or unbalanced growth are based on a priori The operational definition of the concept of
notions about the relationship between (lack balance or imbalance is probably the weakest
of) balance and the process of development. part in the formulation of the theory. In a
For balanced-unbalanced growth to become recent article Swamy [9] formulated the cri-
an empirical hypothesis, rather than a doctrine, terion of balance in terms of the dispersion of
it has to be formulated in a way that it is given sectoral growth rates and he tested the hypoth-
the chance to be proven wrong. An operational esis by correlating the resulting index with the
formulation involves three steps: balance (or overall rate of growth for an international cross
imbalance) is defined in an unambiguous way section and time periods between 1948-1960.
that renders itself to quantification; an observ- In this article we basically employ the same
able relationship between balance and economic operational framework, data sources and time
development is postulated; this observable re- periods with Swamy. The significant divergence
lationship is further specified by establishing in results is due to the more suitable index of
causality and by determining the flow of causa- imbalance and the more refined data set that
tion. we use. In section I we discuss the different
The hypothesized observable relationship be- variants of balanced-unbalanced growth and we
tween balance and economic development is introduce the appropriate for each measure of
sufficiently clear in the literature. The propo- dispersion. After a brief description of the
nents of the balanced growth theory specify data in section II, section III presents the
positive association between balance on the one evidence on the relationship between growth
hand and overall growth rate in national in- rates and indices of imbalance. In section IV
come (per capita). The relationship is reversed the indices of imbalance are related to the level
for the unbalanced growth theorists. of development, as determined by a country's
The discussion on causality between balance national income per capita. Finally, we draw
and development is less unequivocal. In gen- the conclusions from our analysis and we com-
eral, the flow of causation is supposed to run pare our results with parallel investigations.
from balance (or imbalance) to development.2
Two examples will suffice for illustrative pur- I Balanced-Unbalanced Growth and
poses. Nurkse [8] [31 advocates balanced Measures of Dispersion
growth on the grounds that it increases the
Solow and Samuelson [10] (after von Neu-
reinvestible surplus, it provides inducements to
mann) formulate the notion of balanced growth
invest, it creates external economies in comple-
in a way that becomes conducive to measure-
mentary industries and as a result it leads to
ment. This formulation, which also becomes
higher economic development. On the opposite
the starting point for Swamy, requires that
side of the field Hirschman [4] perceives the
. . . the output of each commodity increases or de-
* The authors are grateful to their colleagues Paul A.
creases by a constant percentage per unit of time, the
David and Bridger M. Mitchell for helpful comments on an
mutual proportions in which commodities are produced
early draft. Mr. Lin-Hsiung Chuang and Mr. Wuu-Long
Lin provided able computational assistance. However, we remaining constant. The economy changes only in scale,
still retain full equity rights on the remaining errors. but not in composition [10, p. 412].
1 For a review of the literature on balanced and un-
balanced growth see Sutcliffe [11]. 3A celebrated example of decision-making that is facili-
2Although Boulding [l] and perhaps even Kuznets [7] tated by imbalance is Hirschman's sequence of shortage-
would tend to view causality as going the other way - fromsurplus of "social overhead capital" and "directly productive
development to balance (imbalance). activities" [4].
[ 376 1
1 H
where G is the average rate of growth of a V' w/(g - EJG)2 (3)
country over a given period and g, is the ith
sector's rate of growth. where El is the total incom
mand for sector i's output.8
The v measure of imbalance overlooks en-
We employ the three indices of imbalance for
tirely the relative share of each sector within
the analysis of the dispersion of the sectoral
the economy. This is treacherous since, ob-
rate of growth relative to the overall rate of
viously, a deviation of 100 per cent in the
growth. As another variant we may study the
growth rate of an industry that constitutes only
dispersion of the rate of growth of the manu-
one per cent of the national income should be
facturing subsectors relative to the growth rate
considered as less unbalancing than a 20 per
of the entire manufacturing sector. This focuses
cent deviation of an industry that constitutes
on Nurkse's refinement of the balanced growth
50 per cent of the national income. Conse-
hypothesis according to which a certain degree
quently the measure of dispersion should also
of imbalance is more prevalent in the so-called
allow for the relative share of each sector. The "vertical" sequences of manufacturing pro-
weighted index of imbalance is written as
cesses [3, p. 268]. For this purpose, with nota-
1 / nw tion of V", for the vertical (i.e., producer-
V* = | wi (g - G)2 (2) oriented industries) and V", for the horizontal
G =__1
(i.e., consumer-oriented industries) versions of
4 The theory on balanced-unbalanced growth fails to
specify what is an applicable time interval for the test of 6 Note that in this weighted form, the index of imbalance
the hypothesis. In order to make our analysis comparable coincides with the Coefficient of Variation.
to Swamy's we use the same twelve years (1948-1960) 7In the empirical analysis, w, is given by the ratio of
within which we also distinguish three subperiods. the arithmetic mean of the shares at the beginning and at
5Swamy defines the index of imbalance in terms of the the end of the period over national income.
standard deviation and the mean absolute deviation. Ob- 8 Ideally, these income elasticities should be specific to
viously these are inappropriate indices for the comparison each country. Unfortunately, comparable data on elasticity
of the degree of dispersion of sectoral growth rates across are available only for a few countries. Hence it is assumed
countries because different countries typically have noniden- in the empirical analysis that the income elasticities of de-
tical growth rates. mand are the same across countries.
the elasticity model of imbalance, respectively, the sectoral and overall growth rates provided
we write in general consistently in constant prices for the period
1948-1960 or for at least one of the subperiods
V wim _ + !,W,M(gim - ElM GM)' (4) that we distinguish (1948-1953, 1954-1958 and
1950-1960).10 It was necessary therefore to
where the subscript i refers to the manufac- compute overall and sectoral growth rates from
turing subsector and the subscript M to the raw data on gross domestic product according
manufacturing sector as a whole. to origin. One can distinguish four categories
of countries for this operation. For eleven
II The Data countries in Group A '1 for which the raw data
The data required are growth rates and in- are available in The Growth of World Industry
dices of imbalance for both global sectors and in current prices, we derived real growth rates
the manufacturing subsectors. The indices of by deflating with the International Monetary
imbalance, as defined in section I, are computed Fund deflators [5]. The data for five countries
from sectoral and manufacturing subsectoral in Group B 12 are available as the data for
growth rates, value shares and income elastici- countries in Group A, with the exception of
ties of demand. The basic source of data is deflators. In these cases we procured deflators
United Nations, The Growth of World Indus- from the national source of the data. In order
try, 1938-1961, National Tables [14]. It to supplement the data of the Growth of World
Industry we resorted to two alternative sources.
covers a number of countries, most of them for
the better part of the time-series from 1948- For fifteen countries in Group C we used the
1960. Data are available for six global sectors raw data (deflated) from the United Nations
which follow the International Standard Indus- Yearbook of National Accounts Statistics
trial Classification: agriculture (0), mining (1), [13]. Finally, another three countries (Group
manufacturing (2-3), construction (4), elec- D) were added from data in United Nations,
tricity-gas-water (5), and others (6, 8-9), i.e., Statistical Yearbook [ 15 ] 14 and in national sta-
transportation and communication, services, tistical publications.'5 We thus complete an
etc. Within manufacturing, thirteen subsectors international cross section that, for the sub-
are distinguished. We divide them in consumer period 1954-1958, includes a total of 65 coun-
and producer-oriented industries on the basis tries. The data on the manufacturing subsec-
of the United Nations' classification [12, p. tors come from The Growth of World Industry
12] .9 The consumer-oriented subsectors consist and there exist 25 observations for the sub-
of: food, beverages and tobacco (20-22), tex- period 1954-1958.
tiles (23), clothing and footwear (24), wood The rates of growth in GDP and manufac-
products (2 5-26), printing and publishing (28) turing production and the relevant indices of
and leather and leather products (29). The imbalance, as computed from the raw data
producer-oriented subsectors are paper and described above, are presented in the appendix
paper products (27), rubber products (30), tables 1 and 2. They refer to an international
chemicals and petroleum (31-32), non-metallic
0 This goes partly to explain why Swamy's appendix
mineral products (33), basic metals (34), metal table 1A that presents his data consists of a mixture of real
products (35-38) and other manufacturing output growth rates, growth rates of output valued at
(39). current prices and in some instances, growth rates in em-
ployment.
The basic data provided in The Growth of
" Canada, Republic of China, Ireland, Israel, Japan,
JVorld Industry are still a far cry from a body Netherlands, Peru, South Africa, Spain, United Kingdom,
of homogeneous, closely comparable inter- United States.
12 East Germany, Hungary, Kenya, Puerto Rico, Tan-
country and inter-temporal output measures. ganyika.
Therefore considerable refinement of the data "3Australia, Burma, Czechoslovakia, Iraq, Malaysia,
is necessary. For only thirty-two countries are Mexico, Nicaragua, Nigeria, Paraguay, Poland, Sudan,
Sweden, Turkey, Uganda.
Swamy's classification is slightly different from ours in 14 Bulgaria, Guatemala.
that it includes with the consumer-oriented industries paper 1"Pakistan from Pakistan, Statistical Yearbook, 1965-
and paper products, and rubber products. 1966, p. 281.
native indices of imbalance, computed for each tween the effects of the imbalance in the "ver
country in the international cross section and tical sequence" (i.e., producers' goods) and the
for the periods 1948-1953, 1954-1958 and "horizontal sequence" (i.e., consumers' goods)
1950-1960. The value of this index measures In both cases the effects of imbalance appeai
the degree to which, in each case, there existed to be detrimental.19
a divergence from the postulated balance. A V
or V* index of zero implies that the growth IV Level of Development and Indices
rate of each sector was equal to the overall of Imbalance
growth rate in GDP for a specific country in
We investigate next the relationship betweer
a certain period."8 A V' index of zero indicates
the level of development as indicated by GNEF
a change in scale in the economy proportional
per capita and the indices of imbalance. The
to the elasticity of demand for the output of
reason for this classificatory exercise is that il
each sector. Finally, an index of V" of zero
would be interesting to see if richer countries
has the same interpretation as the V' index but
are more or less unbalanced, in general, thar
it refers to the change of the manufacturing
poorer countries. If the finding is more im-
subsectors within the manufacturing sector.
balance, this would constitute an interesting
The existence of a relationship between the
"reversal" hypothesis, in view of the conclu-
alternative indices of imbalance and the rates
sions of the previous section. The implication
of growth in GDP is investigated by correla-
would be that, although "imbalance is bad fox
tion analysis. The results appear in table 2.
a country," i.e., balanced growth is associated
An inverse relationship exists between sec-
with a higher rate of development, coun-
toral or subsectoral variability and the rate of
tries generally grow in an unbalanced way
growth. This finding appears consistently and
after a certain level of development has been
uniformly for all periods and for all indices of
achieved.20
imbalance, for the global sectors as well as for
Table 3 reports the Spearman rank correla-
the manufacturing subsectors. All coefficients
tion coefficients between the three indices ol
are statistically significant at the 10 per cent
imbalance and the level of development aE
level and most are significant at the 5 per cent
measured by Kuznets' [6, appendix table 1]
level. Moreover, the V' index, which is the
tabulation of GNP per capita for 1958. The
most refined and deserves more emphasis, pro-
results are again consistent for all the indices
duces consistently significant and negative
of imbalance and for the three periods, 1948-
coefficients at the 5 per cent level. The con-
clusion seems compelling that high sectoral 19 These findings are diametrically opposed to Swamy's
imbalance is associated with low overall rate [9] who in general finds positive and high correlation coeffi-
cients between imbalance and rate of growth. We have
of growth. This contradicts the unbalanced already commented on the likely causes of Swamy's find-
growth hypothesis. At the manufacturing sub- ings - the inappropriate indices used and the unrefined and
sector level besides the negative sign of the often incorrect data. One more comment is appropriate on
Swamy's classification of countries according to sectoral
relationship we cannot differentiate further be- balance or imbalance. Actually, two basic problems are
confused, i.e., (a) whether a country, given its structure,
"8To see that both v = O and V* = 0 have identical displays the characteristics of balance or imbalance - a
implications, let p, be the sectoral rate and p' be the overall question of the magnitude of the V index; and (b) whether
rate. Then consider the case of "non-divergent-growth":
balance or imbalance is preferred in general, i.e., whether
p, = p' for all i. low V's are associated with low or high G's. Swamy clas-
The "share" of the ith sector is initially, at time 0: sifies countries not on the basis of their ranking according
to V but on the basis of the correlation of the individual
wM(a) = Y4(6)
Y(6) country's V's with its G's. This obviously addresses neither
and at time t it is question (a) nor question (b). A negative correlation be-
pit tween V and G is called balanced growth while it obviously
Yi (t) Y (0) e Yj(O) (P,-p,)t y4 (0 means that for a specific country G increases when V
wd(t)= = - - e e
Y(t) Y(0) ep't Y(0) Y(0) decreases, i.e., balance is presumably good for it.
It is readily seen that growth cannot be divergent and 20 Swamy reported in favor of such "reversal" hypothesis.
maintain proportionality. The interpretation of V* = 0 is In his case the finding of a direct relationship between
therefore identical to that of 1- = 0. The difference arises in imbalance and rate of growth was reversed by the result
the interpretation of V* #4 0 and 1V = 0. We owe this point that countries, once past a certain level of development,
to Paul A. David. tend to grow in a balanced way.
quency of references in the literature, it ap- Growth," The Canadian Journal of Economics,
19 (Aug. 1953), 326-340.
pears that the proponents of unbalanced growth [2] Chenery, H. B., and L. Taylor, "Development
might have it. Empirical evidence on the sub- Patterns: Among Countries and Over Time," this
ject has been long overdue. Swamy [9] first REVIEW, 50 (Nov. 1968), 391-416.
reported conclusively in favor of unbalanced [3] Haberler, 1G., ed., Equilibrium and Growth in the
growth. We found his approach inadequate, World Economy: Essays by Ragnar Nurkse
(Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press,
from the point of view of statistical formulation 1961).
and appropriateness of data. Chenery and [4] Hirschman, A. O., The Strategy of Economic De-
Taylor [2] use their intercountry and inter- velopment (New Haven: Yale University Press,
temporal analysis of the "normality of eco- 1958).
nomic structure" in order to derive supplemen-[5] International Monetary Fund, International Fi-
nancial Statistics. Supplement to 1966/67 issues.
tary evidence on the question of balance or
[6] Kuznets, S., "Quantitative Aspects of the Eco-
imbalance. They investigate three sectors, pri-
nomic Growth of Nations: IX. Level and Struc-
mary, secondary and tertiary production and ture of Foreign Trade: Comparisons for Recent
they define the "normal" structure on the basis Years," Economic Development and Cultural
of the regression equation of the share of each Change, 13 (Oct. 1964), part II, 1-106.
sector on a number of appropriate exogenous [7] , Modern Economic Growth: Rate, Struc-
ture and Spread (New Haven: Yale University
variables (such as per capita income, size of
Press, 1966).
the country, share of each sector's exports in [8] Nurkse, R., Problems of Capital Formation in
GNP). They report seven countries with high Underdeveloped Countries (Oxford: Oxford Uni-
rates of growth (defined as exceeding 5.5 per versity Press, 1953).
cent per year in the period 1950-1963) as [9] Swamy, D. S., "Statistical Evidence of Balanced
growing with "normal" proportions while eight and Unbalanced Growth," 49, this REVIEW (Aug.
1967), 288-303.
countries with high rates of growth are growing
[10] Solow, R. M., and P. A. Samuelson, "Balanced
either with high or with low primary sector, Growth under Constant Returns to Scale," Econo-
i.e., they are lying above or below the regres- metrica, 21 (July 1953), 412-424.
[11] Suttcliffe, R. B., "Balanced and Unbalanced Social Affairs, Yearbook of National Accounts
Growth," Quarterly Journal of Economics, 78 Statistics (New York, 1967 and 1968).
(Nov. 1964), 621-640. [14] United Nations, Statistical Office, The Growth
[12] United Nations, Department of Economic and of World Industry 1938-1961: National Tables
Social Affairs, A Study of Industrial Growth (New York, 1963).
(New York, 1963). [15] United Nations, Statistical Office, Statistical Year-
[13] United Nations, Department of Economic and book (New York, 1967 and 1968).
APPENDIX TABLE 1. - OVERALL GROWTH RATES IN GDP AND SECTORAL IMBALANCES FOR 65 COUNTRIES
Indices of Imbalance
1948-53 1954-58b 1950-60c 1948-53a 1954-58b 1950-60c 1948-53a 1954-58b 1950-60c 1948-53a 1954-58l' 1950-60c
Sources: 1. United Nations, Statistical Office, The Growth of World Industry, 1953-1965: National Tables, New York, 1967: For the fol-
lowing countries: Algeria, Argentina, Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Cyprus, Denmark, Ecuador, Finland, France, Germany, Greece,
Honduras, India, Italy, Jamaica, Korea, Luxembourg, Morocco, Norway, Philippines, Portugal, Rhodesia, Syria, Thailand, Tunis, United Arab
Republic, Uruguay, Venezuela, Yugoslavia.
2. Group A: United Nations, Statistical Office, The Growth of Wor-ld Industry, 1953-1965: National Tables, New York, 1967; and
International Monetary Fund, International Financial Statistics, Supplement to 1966/67 issue: For the following countries: Canada, China,
Ireland, Israel, Japan, Netherlands, Peru, South Africa, Spain, United Kingdom, United States of America.
3. Group B: United Nations, Statistical Office, The Growth of World Industry, 1953-1965: National Tables, New York, 1967; and
deflators from national sources: For the following countries: East Germany, Hungary, Kenya, Puerto Rico, Tanganyika.
4. Group C: United Nations, Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Yearbook of National Accounts Statistics, New York, 1967 and
1968: For the following countries: Australia, Burma, Czechoslovakia, Iraq, Malaysia, Mexico, Nicaragua, Nigeria, Paraguay, Poland, Sudan,
Sweden, Turkey, Uganda.
5. Group D: United Nations, Statistical Office, Statistical Yearbook, New York, 1967 and 1968: For the following countries: Bulgaria,
Guatemala.
Pakistan, Statistical Yearbook, 1965 and 1966: For the following countries: Pakistan.
a All entries are for years 1948-1953 except for:
Years 1949-1953: Canada, Pakistan.
b All entries are for years 1954-1958 except for:
Years 1953-1958: Austria, Bulgaria, Burma, Czechoslovakia, Guatemala, Iraq, Mexico, Nicaragua, Nigeria, Poland, Paraguay, Sweden,
Turkey, Uruguay.
Years 1955-1958: Malaysia, Sudan, Uganda.
e All entries are for years 1950-1960 except for:
Years 1953-1960: Australia, Burma, Czechoslovakia, Iraq, Ireland, Israel, Mexico, Morocco, Nicaragua, Nigeria, Paraguay, Poland, South
Africa, Sweden, Turkey, Uruguay, Yugoslavia.
Years 1951-1960: China-Taiwan, Thailand, United Kingdom.
Indices of Imbalance