Technological Leadership and Late Development: Evidence from Meiji Japan, 1868-1912

John Tang

Working Papers from U.S. Census Bureau, Center for Economic Studies

Abstract: Large family-owned conglomerates known as zaibatsu have long been credited with leading Japanese industrialization during the Meiji Period (1868-1912), despite a lack of empirical analysis. Using a new dataset collected from corporate genealogies estimate of entry probabilities, I find that characteristics associated with zaibatsu increase a firm's likelihood of being an industry pioneer. In particular, first entry probabilities increase with industry diversification and private ownership, which may provide internal financing and risk-sharing, respectively. Nevertheless, the costs of excessive diversification may deter additional pioneering, which may account for the loss of zaibatsu technological leadership by the turn of the century.

Keywords: Meiji Period; zaibatsu; industrialization; late development; technology adoption (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 24 pages
Date: 2007-12, Revised 2010-05
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-dcm and nep-his
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www2.census.gov/ces/wp/2007/CES-WP-07-32R.pdf Revised version, 2010 (application/pdf)
https://www2.census.gov/ces/wp/2007/CES-WP-07-32.pdf First version, 2007 (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: Technological leadership and late development: evidence from Meiji Japan, 1868–1912 (2011)
Journal Article: Technological leadership and late development: evidence from Meiji Japan, 1868–1912 (2011)
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:cen:wpaper:07-32

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Working Papers from U.S. Census Bureau, Center for Economic Studies Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Dawn Anderson ().