The Depressing Effect of Agricultural Institutions on the Prewar Japanese Economy

Fumio Hayashi and Edward Prescott

Journal of Political Economy, 2008, vol. 116, issue 4, 573-632

Abstract: 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. (c) 2008 by The University of Chicago. All rights reserved.

Date: 2008
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (145)

Downloads: (external link)
http://dx.doi.org/10.1086/591804 link to full text (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
Working Paper: The Depressing Effect of Agricultural Institutions on the Prewar Japanese Economy (2006)
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:ucp:jpolec:v:116:y:2008:i:4:p:573-632

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Journal of Political Economy from University of Chicago Press
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Journals Division ().