Manufacturing Enterprise in Asia: Size Structure and Economic Growth

Issues relating to the size of firms in manufacturing are central to the discussion of development strategies. This book offers an interpretation of growth trajectories in selected Asian economies in terms of the size-structure of enterprises in the manufacturing sector of these economies.

The book presents a comparative survey of distribution of enterprises by size across Asia, including India, Japan, Taiwan, Korea, Thailand, Bangladesh and Vietnam. A broad survey of official data on the size structure of manufacturing helps to identify three distinct patterns of manufacturing sector development and makes the connection between enterprise development and the overall impact on the economy. The book goes on to investigate the problem of the peculiar dual size structure of manufacturing in India, with its two modes at the low and high end of the size distribution and conspicuous ‘missing middle’, and the effect that this has on the economy. This pattern is contrasted with the ‘East Asian, model with a more even size distribution, and the more recent experience of the newly developing countries of Asia with size distribution skewed to the right. It is an important contribution to studies on Asian Economics and Manufacturing Industries.

Sandip Sarkar is currently a Senior Fellow at the Institute of Human Development in Delhi, India. He has been extensively involved in several large –scale research projects funded by national and international agencies.

Dipak Mazumdar is an Academic Economist, working out of Toronto, who has had a long teaching career at the London School of Economics, and subsequently a Senior Research Economist at the World Bank. He has published widely in the field of Labour and Development Economics.