Who Grew Rich? Anatomy and Intergenerational Dynamics of Economic Elites under Japan's Modernization

Tomoko Matsumoto and Tetsuji Okazaki
Additional contact information
Tomoko Matsumoto: Tokyo University of Science
Tetsuji Okazaki: Faculty of Economics, The University of Tokyo

No CIRJE-F-1077, CIRJE F-Series from CIRJE, Faculty of Economics, University of Tokyo

Abstract: The transition from a feudal to a modern society has a substantial impact on income distribution. We explore how transition to a modern society and its economic consequence, particularly industrialization, affected the composition and inter-generational mobility of top income people, in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries Japan. We analyze newly constructed individual-level data of economic elites on income, occupation, education, social stratum and family relationship, and find that the regime change and industrialization provided commonage people a new opportunity to grow rich and escape from the fetter of their social strata and fathers’ income, but that this process resulted in emergence of a new group of economic elites reproduced intergenerationally.

Pages: 49 pages
Date: 2018-03
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-gro
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.cirje.e.u-tokyo.ac.jp/research/dp/2018/2018cf1077.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:tky:fseres:2018cf1077

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in CIRJE F-Series from CIRJE, Faculty of Economics, University of Tokyo Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by CIRJE administrative office (cirje@e.u-tokyo.ac.jp).