How Equality Created Poverty in Preindustrial Japan, 1600–1870

Yuzuru Kumon

American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, 2026, vol. 18, issue 2, 147-76

Abstract: Despite well-developed economic institutions, premodern Japan, 1600–1868, had among the lowest real wages according to available estimates, around half those in preindustrial England. However, many Japanese peasants owned land, unlike their mostly landless English counterparts, due to institutional differences in land inheritance. Using a Malthusian model, I show that this greater landownership equality paradoxically led to Japan's lower wages and GDP per capita. Evidence from Japanese village censuses supports the mechanism. If, as many historians believe, high wages in Western Europe spurred industrialization, Japan's failure to industrialize first could have been shaped by its unusual preindustrial equality.

JEL-codes: D63 E23 J31 N15 N35 N45 N55 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2026
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.aeaweb.org/doi/10.1257/app.20240355 (application/pdf)
https://doi.org/10.3886/E224241V1 (text/html)
https://www.aeaweb.org/articles/materials/24799 (application/pdf)
https://www.aeaweb.org/articles/materials/24800 (application/zip)
Access to full text is restricted to AEA members and institutional subscribers.

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:aea:aejapp:v:18:y:2026:i:2:p:147-76

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.aeaweb.org/journals/subscriptions

DOI: 10.1257/app.20240355

Access Statistics for this article

American Economic Journal: Applied Economics is currently edited by Alexandre Mas

More articles in American Economic Journal: Applied Economics from American Economic Association Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Michael P. Albert ().