Hand looms, power looms, and changing production organizations: the case of the Kiryu weaving district in the early 20th century Japan

Tomoko Hashino and Keijiro Otsuka ()

LSE Research Online Documents on Economics from London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library

Abstract: This study finds that the development process of the Kiryu silk weaving district in Japan from 1895 to 1930 can be divided at least into the two phases, i.e., Smithian growth based on the inter-firm division of labor using hand looms and Schumpeterian development based on factory system using power looms. Weaving manufacturers-cum-contractors led Smithian growth by organizing sub-contracts with out-weavers in rural villages and grew faster than factory production systems. Newly emerged joint stock firms played a role of genuine entrepreneurs by realizing significant scale economies. During this new phase, weaving manufacturers-cum-contractors survived and also introduced new production system.

Keywords: industrial district; production organizations; weaving industry; 20th century Japan; economic development (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: N95 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 40 pages
Date: 2012-01
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/41659/ Open access version. (application/pdf)

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:ehl:lserod:41659

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in LSE Research Online Documents on Economics from London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library LSE Library Portugal Street London, WC2A 2HD, U.K.. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by LSERO Manager ().