Labour Market Dualism in the Lewis Model: Reply

Abstract

Excerpt] Richard Brown (2006) has written that the interpretation of the 1954 Lewis model that I presented in Fields (2004) is ‘flawed for a number of reasons’ and ‘Fields’s appreciation of the contribution of the Lewis model to understanding the process of wage determination in developing economies is therefore misplaced’. In this reply, I explain why I think the flaws are not mine but Brown’s. Before proceeding, I wish to point out that the conference at which my paper was presented and the issue of The Manchester School in which my paper was published were entitled ‘The Lewis Model after Fifty Years’. Accordingly, my paper and this reply focus on Lewis’s original 1954 paper.