Before the Emergence of Economic Society

Akira, Hayami

doi:10.1007/978-4-431-55142-3_2

Cited by 3 publications

(4 citation statements)

References 2 publications

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“…As previous studies note, Tokugawa Japan is normally described as a period of Smithian growth, which is a period of gradual economic growth led by market extension and increased divisions of labour (Smith, ; Hayami, ; Saito, ; Saito and Takashima, ).…”

Section: Economic Growth Urbanisation and Population Densitymentioning

confidence: 99%

Labour Productivity Growth in the Long Run: Japan, 1600–1909

Settsu

Takashima

2020

Aust Econ Hist Rev

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This article examines long‐term labour productivity change in Japan from the early seventeenth century to the nineteenth century. We constructed sectoral labour force estimates based on the methodology presented in a previous study, who provided a sectoral GDP series covering the Tokugawa period. Our results show the industrial structure in the Tokugawa period remained relatively stable in comparison with the economy after the Meiji Restoration. Nevertheless, the estimates of sectoral labour productivity suggest expansion of the market economy in Tokugawa Japan influenced the development of industrialisation after the Meiji Restoration.

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Section: Economic Growth Urbanisation and Population Densitymentioning

confidence: 99%

Labour Productivity Growth in the Long Run: Japan, 1600–1909

Settsu

Takashima

2020

Aust Econ Hist Rev

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“…In the even less equivocal words of Paul Gregory, research by himself and others has provided "convincing evidence that Russian agriculture was, by and large, operating according to market principles" (1994: 83). In the case of Japan, revisionist economic historians have focused on arguing for a continuity of market-responsive economic activity, centered on rural areas, reaching back from the Meiji period to at least the eighteenth century (Francks 2006;Hayami 2004;Yamamura 1974;. Small-scale farming combined with commercial and industrial by-employments remained the dominant rural economic pattern, not due to a failed or incomplete transition to capitalism, but instead because these patterns were themselves highly effective adaptations to the growth and development of the industrial economy (Francks 2006;Sashinami 2001).…”

Section: The Fruits and Limits Of Cliometricsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In Japan as well, government policy fostered the construction of telegraph lines and railroads and the emergence of modern shipping and financial industries (Kasuya 2000;Koiwa 2000). More generally, the Meiji state is recognized as having set up a framework that was able to mobilize existing resources, including the social capital of local notables and the human capital of traditional craftsmen and farmers (Hayami andYamada 1998 [1975]; Morris-Suzuki 1994;Nakamura 2010). An important dimension of this alternative interpretation of the role of the state is that it does not challenge the earlier accounts' assessment that the two states' reforms to agrarian property relations were very limited.…”

Section: The Fruits and Limits Of Cliometricsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Reforming States, Agricultural Transformation, and Economic Development in Russia and Japan, 1853–1913

Cohen

2018

Comp Stud Soc Hist

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A once-dominant family of interpretations of the beginnings of Japanese and Russian development claimed that policies adopted by the two states were inadequate to modernize agrarian property relations, and so both states were required to mediate between premodern agriculture and “hot-house” modern industry. More recent accounts have insisted that despite the limited reforms to agrarian property relations, agriculture in both countries in fact dynamically participated in economic development. This paper contends that these revised accounts’ one-sided focus on market opportunities leaves unresolved key puzzles. Why did productivity growth jump higher after the Meiji reforms in Japan? Why did only some regions participate in agricultural development in Russia? To answer these questions, this paper argues it is necessary to return attention to the ways agrarian property relations did and did not change following reforms adopted by the two states in the 1860s and 1870s. The key theoretical upshot of this analysis is that the initiation of capitalist development required a political process in which institutions that had previously guaranteed non-market access of rural households to subsistence were dismantled in favor of the domination of market relations.

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“…115 In addition, Japanese geography is such that many rivers are short with very swift currents that were prone to frequent and violent flooding, thus occasionally making even river transport difficult. 116 Overland transport was similarly hindered by geography as well as by shogunal restrictions on the use of carts and wagons on the major thoroughfares connecting the major ports and cities to one another. The network of roads that accounted for the majority of traffic to and from Edo during the Tokugawa period was called the Gokkaido, and it was generally built for pedestrian rather than vehicular passage, intended especially to serve the free flow of official travellers and communications on well-maintained roads.…”

Section: Resource Usementioning

confidence: 99%

Escaping Malthus: a comparative look at Japan and the ‘Great Divergence’

Gruber

2014

Journal of Global History

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The causes and consequences of the Industrial Revolution have led to a great deal of scholarship and debate within the field of economic history, from efforts to understand the internal dynamics of England and Europe to more recent revisionist literature that has sought to expand the debate by looking to Asia. This has enlivened and broadened the ‘Great Divergence’ debate through examining, by way of ecological factors, not only why China did not industrialize but also why England took a different path from that of China. This article expands the argument by looking at Japan, with a focus on coal mining as a foundation for escaping Malthusian constraints. As such, it will assess the extent of Malthusian pressure in pre-modern Japan and the importance of coal mining in alleviating these pressures relative to conditions in England and China.

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Before the Emergence of Economic Society

Cited by 3 publications

References 2 publications

Labour Productivity Growth in the Long Run: Japan, 1600–1909

Labour Productivity Growth in the Long Run: Japan, 1600–1909

Reforming States, Agricultural Transformation, and Economic Development in Russia and Japan, 1853–1913

Escaping Malthus: a comparative look at Japan and the ‘Great Divergence’

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