Technology in a developing country; the case of Taiwan

The design for this study in the case of Taiwan is delimited by two basic conditions: from the theoretical point of view, technology is investigated in the context of economic development; from the empirical point of view, the statistical evidences are based on a sample survey of four multiple firm industries: brick, shoe, textile and machine tool. This volume attempts to move beyond the traditional theories which neglect the underlying engineering foundation of the production function and view the entrepreneur as a crude homogeneous profit maximizer. The essential message is that the non-homogeneous LDC entrepreneur is likely to adopt a variety of alternative means to achieve his technological ends with very different economic impacts on resources utilization. Policy conclusions emanating from this expedition into unconventional analysis are derived. A theoretical framework is provided to interpret the observable data for the multiple-firm industry. The engineering foundation of the conventional production function is examined. The formulation of a more rigorous model dealing with the existence of subphases in the production process from the engineering point of view is attempted, with the economic implications of the demand for labor and short run capital traced to their technological and process-related origins. It is concluded that research on technology change in the developing country faces a bottleneck due to a deficiency with respect both to data and theoretical ideas. Non-conventional research is most likely to lead directly to meaningful policy recommendations in the near future.