ABSTRACT
From a historical perspective, the postwar economic development of many contemporary less developed countries (LDCs), including Taiwan, has been a process of transitional growth characterized by a termination of their prewar heritage of agrarian colonialism as well as the initiation of what was referred to by Simon Kuznets as the “epoch of modern economic growth (MEG).” The modern epoch was a new way of life brought to societies in the Western world two hundred years ago at the time of the industrial revolution. In this modern epoch, the primary growth promotion force is based on a systematic exploration of the frontier of science and technology as well as a routinized application of such knowledge as an essential part of the art of production.
