Transition to a Modern Regime and Change in PlantLifecycles: A Natural Experiment from Meiji Japan

Tomihiro Machikita and Tetsuji Okazaki
Additional contact information
Tomihiro Machikita: Center for South East Asia Studies (CSEAS), Kyoto University
Tetsuji Okazaki: Faculty of Economics, The University of Tokyo

No CIRJE-F-1122, CIRJE F-Series from CIRJE, Faculty of Economics, University of Tokyo

Abstract: This paper examines how political, social, and economic regime changes affect the lifecycles of manufacturing plants exploiting Japan's transition from a feudal regime to a modern regime in the late nineteenth century as a natural experiment. Using plant-level data for 1902, including the foundation year of each plant, we explored how the experience-size profiles of plants differ before and after the regime change. Plants were found to grow much faster after the regime change and the acceleration of growth after the regime change was much greater for the plants in exporting industries, industries intensively using steam power, and plants adopting a corporate form. These findings suggest that access to export markets, access to modern technologies, and availability of the modern corporate form were the channels through which the regime change affected the experience-size profile of plants. The findings on the acceleration of plant growth after the regime change are supported by the analyses of more detailed data from the silk-reeling industry.

Pages: 45 pages
Date: 2019-08
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-gro and nep-his
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.cirje.e.u-tokyo.ac.jp/research/dp/2019/2019cf1122.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:2019cf1122

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 ().