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Japan's Great Kantō Earthquake of 1 September 1923 devastated the area around Tokyo and the country's main port of Yokohama. This article uses the earthquake as a case study to inform our understanding of the economics of disasters and the history of market integration. It seeks to test two main assumptions: first, that shifting demand and supply curves consequent on a disaster will have some impact on prices; and second, that any local changes in the disaster region are likely to be diffused across a wider geographical area. We make use of a unique monthly wholesale price dataset for a number of cities across Japan, and our analysis suggests three main findings: that price changes in the affected areas immediately following the disaster were in most cases reflected in price changes in Japan's provincial cities; that cities further away from the devastation witnessed smaller price changes than those nearer to the affected area; and that the observed pattern of price changes reflects the regional heterogeneity identified by scholars who have worked on market integration in Japan. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: This article studies the interrelation between spot and futures prices in the two major rice markets in prewar Japan from the perspective of market efficiency. Applying a non‐Bayesian time‐varying model approach to the fundamental equation for spot returns and the futures premium, we detect when efficiency reductions in the two major rice markets occurred. We also examine how government interventions affected the rice markets in Japan, which colonized Taiwan and Korea before the Second World War, and argue that the function of rice futures markets crucially depended on the differences in the structure of rice spot markets. Initially the increased volume of imported rice of a different variety from domestic rice disrupted the rice futures markets. Then, government intervention in the rice futures markets failed to improve the disruption. Changes in colonial rice cropping successfully mitigated the disruption, and colonial rice was promoted in order to unify the different varieties of inland and colonial rice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Several theories on communication are tested on trial to what extent they can provide additional insight in business history. All are focused on one known example, the relation between the dyestuff cartel and its Japanese competitors in the interwar period. Can theory extend the limits of our knowledge even in well known cases? While the classification of types of information transfer according to Chun Wei Choo provides only limited new insights, other theories provided interesting results. One is the creation of mutual trust, which helps to explain the - from an economic point of view - quite surprising longevity of the cartel. Another application provides reasons for the cartel's largest strategic failure. Thus, communication theory can but need not provide deeper insights into business history. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the 1930s and 1940s, the Japanese coal industry experienced huge fluctuations in production and labor productivity. In this paper, I explore the micro-aspects of labour productivity change in the coal industry during World War II using mine-level data, compiled from official statistics and original documents of the Coal Control Association (Sekitan Toseikai). The coal industry in this period was characterized by dynamic changes in market structure: a number of mines entered and exited the industry, and shares of incumbent mines changed substantially. These mine dynamics had significant implications on productivity. In the early stage of the war, many low productivity mines entered the industry which considerably reduced average labor productivity. The government and the Coal Control Association implemented a policy to concentrate resources and production on efficient mines during the war, which curbed the decline in average labor productivity. Despite the deteriorating environment during the war, coal production in Japan was maintained fairly well. One of the factors that made this possible was the policy of resource reallocation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Contemporary concerns about the difficulties faced by the Japanese economy following the Great Kantō Earthquake of 1923 soon appeared to be unfounded as the economy recovered relatively quickly. This paper suggests that despite its limited impact on Japan's longer-term economic trajectory this disaster can tell us a great deal about the ways in which individuals, organizations, and officialdom respond to a devastating event, and help us better understand the process of transition from immediate relief to longer-term recovery, not just in Japan, but more broadly. It analyzes the impact of the disaster on market transactions, showing that the scale and nature of market disruption went far beyond direct physical destruction; that the collective and individual responses of government, producers, traders, and consumers had the potential to make matters worse, rather than better; and that the existence of integrated markets spread the effects of the disaster across the Japanese archipelago. It also suggests that reestablishing market stability following the crisis was one of the keys to longer-term recovery, and that further research will help us understand the causal factors in that process. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

A veteran finance minister, Takahashi Korekiyo, brought an early recovery for Japan from the Great Depression of the 1930s by prescribing a combination of expansionary fiscal, exchange rate, and monetary policies. To explore the comprehensive transmission mechanism of Takahashi's macroeconomic policy package, including the expectation channel, we construct a structural vector autoregression (S-VAR) model with three state variables (output, price, and the inflation expectations) and three policy variables (fiscal balance, exchange rate, and money stock). Our analysis reveals that the exchange rate adjustment undertaken as an independent policy tool had the strongest effect, and that changes in people's expectations played a significant role for escaping from the Great Depression. During the second half of 1931, in particular, speculation on Japan's departure from the gold standard and the inflation that was likely to follow reversed the existing expectations: instead of expecting deflation, people began to expect inflation, months ahead of the actual departure from the gold standard. As a whole, the choice of the level of the exchange rate was crucial for changing people's expectations as well as promoting exports. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An essay is presented which demonstrated that the film "Sono yo no tsuma" (That Night's Wife), directed by Ozu Yasujirô embodied the contradictory discourses of technological modernity in Japan in 1930. It states that the year 1930 was a year of contradictions, anxiety and comfort, and dread and confidence, specifically in terms of economic conditions and urban landscapes. Topics discussed include Western development in Japan and the "materiality" of the film.

In the wide domain of finance, taxation is one of the issues to which public opinion is most sensitive. This paper explores why tax reform was hotly debated in Japan throughout the 1920s, focusing on the policies of the two main political parties. Though a topic rarely treated by historians, this controversy reveals a wealth of information on the concerns that lay behind policy choices in years that were marked by economic instability and social unrest; it shows, in particular, how the ruling elites tried to attenuate class conflict by enhancing the redistributive function of taxes, which had thus far been subordinated to the encouragement of rapid economic growth and the financing of state investment. While these attempts deserve attention as tentative steps towards the development of a welfare state, their limits indicate that the parties, in spite of extending the suffrage during this period, retained strong links with a restricted network of established constituents. This paper dwells especially on the earliest and least studied phase of the dispute on tax reform, in order to prove that the emergence of distinct party platforms did not stem simply from tactical considerations, but was rooted in broader policy visions. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The Japanese aircraft industry, which was very small scale before the Second World War, became Japan’s largest manufacturing industry by the end of the war. This article explores the basis for the growth of the aircraft industry during this time by focusing on Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Company’s No. 5 Works. It was revealed that during the war, the supply of basic inputs increased substantially: labour force, equipment, and ‘machinery parts’ were in sufficient supply and none of these was a binding constraint on production. The binding constraint existed in the supply of ‘special parts’. In other words, aircraft production expanded as the supply of special parts increased. This increase in the supply of special parts and still faster growth in the supply of machinery parts came about through the expansion of the supplier network in terms of both the number of suppliers and the geographical area in which they were located. These findings imply that outsourcing played a key role in the growth of aircraft production in wartime Japan. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article explores the intellectual impact and academic significance of author Chalmers Johnson. The author reflects on the book "MITI and the Japanese Miracle: The Growth of Industrial Policy, 1925-1975" to discuss the role of Japan's Ministry of International Trade and Industry in guiding industrial policy and promoting economic development. Other topics include equating capitalism with democracy, criticism of Japan as a developmental state, the rational choice school, and Johnson's scholarship as his personal belief system.

An essay is presented on the role of preventive war strategy in the military motivation behind the Pacific War between Japan and the U.S. The author questions the reasoning behind Japan's decision to attack Pearl Harbor, highlighting the difference between the economic and military power of the two countries. He suggests that Japan became engaged in World War II due to a fear of decline and vulnerability to attacks by the U.S. or Russia.

The issuance of bonds increased in inter-war Japan, the main investors being banks because the demand for loans declined in this period. Banks that were more tolerant to risk (that is, whose capital ratio was higher) made a larger amount of loans, which were riskier than bonds. While national bonds were traded actively in secondary markets, local bonds, corporate bonds, and bank debentures were not traded actively during this period. After the formation of cartels of banks and securities firms for bond underwriting and trading during the Great Depression, bond trading in secondary markets diminished, except for national bonds. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Why didn't the Japanese miracle take place before World War II? The culprit we identify is a barrier that kept prewar agricultural employment constant. Using a standard neoclassical two-sector growth model, we show that the barrier-induced sectoral distortion and an ensuring lack of capital accumulation account well for the depressed output level. Without the barrier, Japan's prewar GNP per worker would have been at least about a half of that of the United States, not about a third as in the data. The labor barrier existed because, we argue, the prewar patriarchy forced the son designated as heir to stay in agriculture. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Niall Ferguson argued that, in part, the Second World War proved much more difficult to end than the First World War because both the German and Japanese armed forces continued fighting long after any realistic prospect of victory had disappeared. He ascribes this difference to the comparatively greater difficulties faced by soldiers wishing to surrender in the Second World War. Only after the Allied military authorities had adopted policies encouraging surrender in the Second World War did large numbers of enemy troops voluntarily surrender, thereby bringing the conflict to a swift conclusion. Ferguson contends that the game theoretic approach developed in economics, as exemplified in the prisoner's dilemma game, can be extended to a 'captor's dilemma' game that can shed light on the efficacy of various strategies on surrender policy available to military forces. This paper considers the game theoretic approach advanced by Ferguson and suggests that it requires further refinement before it can satisfactorily explain the problem of surrender. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The author provides an interpretation of the post-World War II economic “miracle” of Japan as a process of economic convergence within the framework of the neoclassical Solow—Swan model of economic growth. He shows how the predictions of the Solow—Swan model are qualitatively consistent with the actual economic record of Japan in the decades following World War II. The article is intended to help in the teaching of economic growth and the Japanese economic miracle, either as part of a macroeconomics course or in an advanced elective course in economic growth and development or in Japan's modern economic history. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Explores economic changes during the Taisho and Early Showa eras in Japan from 1912 to 1937. Politics of Japan during the Taisho democracy; Impact of World War I on the country's economy between 1914 to 1919; Agricultural depression in the 1920s.

Examines the war economy and the postwar reform in Japan between 1937 and 1951. Economic trends during a war with China in July 1937; Sequence of such war; Economic reforms of Japan during the U.S. occupation from 1890 to 1964.

Focuses on the efforts of Japanese during World War II to gain the cooperation of the intrinsically hostile, but economically vital Overseas Chinese community in Thailand. Information on the International Orphans; Detailed information on working for the Japanese Army; Conclusion reached.

The article discusses income velocity in Japan during the period of 1879-1940. A national income series, based on the gross national product and money supply in the U.S., is compared to that of Japan in order to determine an income velocity series. Results show that there is a secular rising trend during 1879-1940. Also, the shifts of preferences for banks and postal savings deposits are discussed. The development of a sound banking system dealing with liquid balances is examined for advantages.