Description
This essay discusses the economic history of South Vietnam from 1955-1975, during which time the country received a generous amount of foreign aid in order to help improve the standard of living for the population. Despite this aid, the country failed to make much progress in terms of economic development, and in fact faced a number of problems including wartime inflation and a weak tax system. South Vietnam was also compared to three other countries - Israel, South Korea, and Taiwan - during the same period who all fared much better economically despite facing similar threats from their enemies.
Foreign Aid, War, and Economic Development traces the economic history of South Vietnam from 1955 to 1975. During this period encompassing the Vietnam war, high-level officials paid relatively little attention to the economy of South Vietnam even though economic development was a necessary condition for the country’s survival. A generous foreign aid program was designed to pay local troops and improve the standard of living of the population. Professor Dacy documents this growth in national income and the progress or lack thereof in a number of development indicators. He discusses the goals of United States economic aid and measures the net resources transferred. Additionally, the book analyzes wartime inflation and the Vietnamese tax system, and in so doing shows that the measures which would have promoted long-run viability were shunned in favor of short-run expediencies that practically doomed the country in the long run. Finally, economic development in South Vietnam is compared to that in Israel, South Korea, and Taiwan, three nations that faced high military threats during the same period.
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