One of the nice things about studying Taiwan is that it has a top-notch statistical bureau, with lots of high-quality economic data made readily available to the public, if you know how to access it. These data are really an underutilized resource in scholarship on Taiwan, which often cites cursory or incomplete statistics reported in the media that can give a misleading impression of the overall state of the economy (for an example, see this Taipei Times write-up of unemployment trends.)
As a way to keep track of some of these data, I thought I'd post a couple figures I made a while back for a talk, along with the sources. I'd encourage anyone who's interested and can read some Chinese to explore them further at the ROC National Statistics homepage, here.
As a way to keep track of some of these data, I thought I'd post a couple figures I made a while back for a talk, along with the sources. I'd encourage anyone who's interested and can read some Chinese to explore them further at the ROC National Statistics homepage, here.
Source data: ROC Statistical Bureau.
First, in the figure above I've broken out unemployment level by age cohort, focusing on the two key "youth cohorts" (I've left out the 16-19 category, which can be misleading given that many people are not actively looking for work at this age). It's striking how much higher youth unemployment is than overall unemployment, which by international standards is quite low at about 4%. By contrast, unemployment in the 20-24 year age cohort is more than triple that, at near 13%. Equally interesting, and easier to miss, is that the gap between the young cohorts and the rest has also increased over the last 14 years: that difference was a factor of two in 2000, but a factor of over three in 2014. This figure gives us some sense of why the forceful opposition to the cross-Strait Services in Trade Agreement (CSSTA) included so many students: they've done proportionately worse over the last decade and more, even as the total labor unemployment rate has returned to a level near what it was a decade ago.
Source data: World Bank and ROC Statistical Yearbook.
Second, the figures above show GDP change in several economies to which Taiwan's is often compared. The presentation is a little messier than I'd like, but one can still get a good sense of how Taiwan's economy has performed in relative terms over the last 30 years.
What's especially striking to me is the recent comparison with South Korea. The narrative of the Ma campaign in 2008 was that Taiwan's economy had drastically underperformed and was losing ground. By contrast, the data above show that, at least using GDP growth rates, Taiwan's growth was higher than Korea's for five consecutive years, from 2003-2007. (The economic shock that hit all of East Asia in 2008-09 originated in the United States, so it's hardly fair to blame either Chen Shui-bian or Ma Ying-jeou for the deep recession that followed.) But that generally positive story about the Chen years (2000-2008) gets turned into this (from the KMT's party website):
What's especially striking to me is the recent comparison with South Korea. The narrative of the Ma campaign in 2008 was that Taiwan's economy had drastically underperformed and was losing ground. By contrast, the data above show that, at least using GDP growth rates, Taiwan's growth was higher than Korea's for five consecutive years, from 2003-2007. (The economic shock that hit all of East Asia in 2008-09 originated in the United States, so it's hardly fair to blame either Chen Shui-bian or Ma Ying-jeou for the deep recession that followed.) But that generally positive story about the Chen years (2000-2008) gets turned into this (from the KMT's party website):
That is, the KMT is attempting to lump the entire eight years of the DPP presidency together, in which the gap between Taiwan and South Korea narrowed, and contrast them with the increasing rates of the subsequent Ma administration. At best, that's an incomplete picture, as the data in the first two tables demonstrate. While the gap narrowed, it did so during Chen's first term, not his second. And the increase in the Taiwan-Korea gap during the Ma years is due entirely to a giant spike in 2010, when Taiwan's economy rebounded much faster from the recession than did Korea's.
One other point: this is a pretty rudimentary comparison. Average per-capita income growth can also be misleading, in that rapid income growth among a small elite can move the whole average up. (In fact, that is what appears to have happened: as this article notes, average wages for salaried workers are about the same as they were in 1998, adjusted for inflation.) It would be nice to see median salary, and even better, a comparison of income inequality and its cousin, wealth inequality, measured various ways over time.
The first of these, income inequality, is shown in the figures below.
One other point: this is a pretty rudimentary comparison. Average per-capita income growth can also be misleading, in that rapid income growth among a small elite can move the whole average up. (In fact, that is what appears to have happened: as this article notes, average wages for salaried workers are about the same as they were in 1998, adjusted for inflation.) It would be nice to see median salary, and even better, a comparison of income inequality and its cousin, wealth inequality, measured various ways over time.
The first of these, income inequality, is shown in the figures below.
ROC Statistical Bureau source data
ROC Statistical Bureau source data
The last two figures show income inequality measured two different ways: as a Gini coefficient, and as a ratio of the top 1/5 to bottom 1/5 of all households. The pattern in both graphs is similar: Taiwan's income inequality was on a pretty steady upward trajectory from 1980 until 2000, then it leveled off. (The spikes are during the recessions of 2001 and 2008-9, when unemployment jumped, driving income inequality higher during these periods.)
This picture is surprising given the narrative in the media about rapidly increasing inequality in Taiwan--so surprising I'm not entirely sure what's going on here. I suspect using income instead of wealth is painting a much better picture of inequality than actually exists on the ground. For one, capital gains and real estate gains are not treated like ordinary income for tax purposes in Taiwan--if a household's wealth gains come mostly from these sources, then they are potentially classified as low-income! For another, the use of quintiles in the comparison above, rather than five percent margins (as reported in this article), or even something smaller like comparing gains to the top 1% or top 0.1%, would probably paint a starker contrast. At any rate, worth investigating further, given how prominent this issue is becoming in public discourse in Taiwan. Grist for a future post...
This picture is surprising given the narrative in the media about rapidly increasing inequality in Taiwan--so surprising I'm not entirely sure what's going on here. I suspect using income instead of wealth is painting a much better picture of inequality than actually exists on the ground. For one, capital gains and real estate gains are not treated like ordinary income for tax purposes in Taiwan--if a household's wealth gains come mostly from these sources, then they are potentially classified as low-income! For another, the use of quintiles in the comparison above, rather than five percent margins (as reported in this article), or even something smaller like comparing gains to the top 1% or top 0.1%, would probably paint a starker contrast. At any rate, worth investigating further, given how prominent this issue is becoming in public discourse in Taiwan. Grist for a future post...
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