Imposed Efficiency of Treaty Port: Japanese Industrialization and Western Imperialist Institutions

Masaki Nakabayashi

No f142, ISS Discussion Paper Series (series F) from Institute of Social Science, The University of Tokyo

Abstract: An intrinsic feature of a pre-modern society is in its fragmentary markets. Fragmentary markets are more likely to fail in the coordination of resource allocation. However, if a concentrated market is exogenously formed and the market could provide the only price to local markets, the market can work as a pivot of coordination for development. Treaty port markets imposed on nineteenth-century Japan worked as the pivot and ignited Japan's industrialization. We examine the silk-reeling industry, which was the major export industry and which led to Japanese industrialization, and the role of treaty ports in its development.

Keywords: international trade; institutions, economic openness; treaty port; empire effect (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: F14 N75 O19 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 59 pages
Date: 2008-11-01, Revised 2013-12-07
Note: Data are included.
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (7)

Published in the Review of Development Economics, 18(2), May 2014, 254-271.

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http://www.iss.u-tokyo.ac.jp/publishments/dpf/pdf/f-142.pdf Revised version, November. 2013 (application/pdf)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:itk:issdps:f142

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