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Myanmar is located between 9deg. 55min. and 28deg. 15min. north latitude and 92deg. 10min. and 101deg. 10min. east longitude. It is the westernmost country in southeast Asia. Its bordering countries are Bangladesh, India, China, Laos, and Thailand. Over 50% of the eastern coastline of the Bay of Bengal and the Andaman Sea constitutes the western border. The country occupies a total land area of 676,577km² and is home to 57.5 million people in 14 states and regions, per 2008 estimate. The general topography of the country is high in the north and the west with north–south-oriented mountain ranges extending from the Himalayas. The eastern side of the country is a wide plateau connected to Yunnan, China. The central area and the more southern parts of the country are relatively low. Rivers run from north to south in most parts of the country. A map of Myanmar's states and regions is shown in Fig. 1.

The Union of Myanmar is located in mainland Southeast Asia and shares borders with India, China, Lao PDR, Thailand, and Bangladesh. It is situated between the Himalayan ranges and the Bay of Bengal. Due to these diversified geographical features, Myanmar is highly vulnerable to different kinds of hazards, and has experienced many kinds of disasters in the past, according to the Hazard Profile of Myanmar (2009), such as cyclones, floods, storms, landslides, earthquakes, tsunamis, droughts, and fires. For the general public, cyclones are considered the major menace in the country, however the recent earthquake with a magnitude of 6.9 in Shan state on March 24, 2011 made inhabitants realize that they are living with the risk of earthquakes as well. According to New Light of Myanmar (the State-run newspaper) on March 26, 2011, the earthquake resulted in 73 deaths (official record of the country). Besides earthquakes and cyclones, there have been many victims of landslides, and the people at coastal areas face the risk of tsunami in the case of earthquakes that occur in the Indian Ocean. In 2004, 61 people were killed in Myanmar by the Indian Ocean tsunami according to the Hazard Profile of Myanmar (2009). Furthermore, the year of 2011 witnessed chronic and severe floods all over the country.

This article provides a detailed investigation of how Lewis revisited classical and Marxian concepts such as productive/unproductive labor, economic surplus, subsistence wages, reserve army, and capital accumulation in his investigation of economic development. The Lewis 1954 development model is compared to other models advanced at the time by Harrod, Domar, Swan, Kaldor, Solow, von Neumann, Nurkse, Rosenstein-Rodan, Myint, and others. Lewis applied the notion of economic duality to open and closed economies.

Most models attempting to give an account of trade-induced symmetric increase in wage inequality have abandoned the factor price equalization (FPE) framework. The present chapter retains the FPE framework and identifies a plausible route through which trade might increase wage inequality in all trading countries. A two-sector model with one constant returns sector producing basic goods and another increasing returns to scale sector producing fancy goods is developed. A quasi-linear utility function is used to capture the divide between basic and fancy goods. There are two types of productive factors, skilled and unskilled labour, and they differ with respect to their occupational options. Skilled labour can work both in the skill using fancy goods sector and in the unskilled labour using basic good producing sector, whereas unskilled labour is tied down to unskilled job. The model holds possibilities of multiple equilibria and under reasonable parameterization skill premium increases in all countries following trade.

Neo‐classical utility theory has withstood several decades of sustained criticism. Its success has been due (1) to the ability of the theory to represent an essentially non‐analytical process by analytical methods, and (2) to the fact that the theory was developed for, and applied to, advanced market economies where the simplifying assumptions are most appropriate. It is argued below that the neo‐classical formulation is inappropriate in societies where agrarian traditions predominate and that, consequently, economic policies based on such an approach have frequently been misdirected.

The purpose of this study was to investigate the status of technology adoption (TA) among clothing manufacturers in Bangladesh and examine the influences of contextual factors on their TA level. Particularly, the authors examined the effects of export orientation, top management commitment (TMC), competitive pressure (CP), cost of capital (CC) and technical skills (TS).

The data were collected from Bangladeshi clothing manufacturer through an online survey. A firm was treated as a unit of analysis.

The results revealed that the most common technologies adopted were information technology and software related and the least common were automation related. Export orientation negatively influenced while TS and CP positively influenced the level of TA.

Due to the difficulty in obtaining firm level data, data collection did not utilize a random sampling. Only firms that agree to participate were included in the data.

The authors suggest the Bangladeshi clothing manufacturers to adopt selective technologies that complement the cost leadership strategy rather than immediate differentiation strategy or technology innovations.

Focused investment in human capitals and knowledge transfer in Bangladesh, one of the newly classified developing country, should sustain their competitiveness in the global market. Further discussions provide various stakeholders with insights related to trade policies, international aids and the UN's sustainable development agenda.

This study tackles a void that exists in TA research within the labor intensive clothing manufacturing sector, especially in a lower-middle income country, which surprisingly became the second largest clothing supplier today. Unique nature of the sector as an entry to economic development process in connection to the sustainable development concept is discussed to generate implications for practitioners as well as policy makers.