Conclusion

Penelope Francks
Additional contact information
Penelope Francks: University of Leeds

Chapter Chapter 11 in Japan and the Great Divergence, 2016, pp 111-116 from Palgrave Macmillan

Abstract: Abstract Global quantitative comparisons continue to conclude that, by the early-modern period, Japan, like China, already lagged behind northern Europe in terms of the conditions for sustained economic growth, so that Japanese industrialisation must be interpreted as ‘catching up’ on the basis of ‘borrowing’ from the West. However, when viewed in a Great Divergence light, the research brought together in this book can be seen as showing how the development of Japan’s pre-industrial economy achieved similar ends to its European counterparts, if along a different and not entirely commensurable path. This involved the intensified utilisation of labour resources to overcome limitations to Smithian growth and prepared the ground for a form of industrialisation in which small-scale labour-intensive production, based on indigenous forms of organisation and technology, played a major role. As a result, in comparison with Europe, markets functioned in different ways, consumption patterns differed, and the institutional structure of government and economy was distinctive. Nonetheless, while this may make quantitative comparison of the conditions for growth difficult, it did not prevent Japan from initiating a path to industrialisation which was eventually, as it spread through Asia, to transform the world economy.

Keywords: ‘Smithian’ growth in Japan; ‘Catch-up’ industrialisation; Labour-intensive industrialisation; Comparative development paths (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2016
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

There are no downloads for this item, see the EconPapers FAQ for hints about obtaining it.

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:pal:palscp:978-1-137-57673-6_11

Ordering information: This item can be ordered from
http://www.palgrave.com/9781137576736

DOI: 10.1057/978-1-137-57673-6_11

Access Statistics for this chapter

More chapters in Palgrave Studies in Economic History from Palgrave Macmillan
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().