Extensive versus Intensive Agricultural Development: Induced Public Investment in Southeast Asia, 1900–1940

Kikuchi and Hayami found that irrigation investments were undertaken in East and Southeast Asia when the costs of increasing output through irrigating were lower than through bringing more land under cultivation. In Thailand, however, despite the lower costs of irrigation, the investments were postponed for several decades. The delay was due to a divergence between national security and economic development goals and to a conflict of private …