"At the beginning of the twentieth-century, Burma was among the most prosperous territories in the East. Yet since gaining independence in 1948, its economy has struggled. Burma's developmental failure has often been attributed to gross mismanagement of the economy by the military who took power...

The principal cause of the 1930s depression in Southeast Asia lay outside the region — through a sharp contraction in demand for the region’s major commodity exports. But it had important internal causes too: an oversupply of primary commodities and an increasing scarcity of new agricultural...