Money, credit and Smithian growth in Tokugawa Japan

Osamu Saito and Tokihiko Settsu

Hi-Stat Discussion Paper Series from Institute of Economic Research, Hitotsubashi University

Abstract: In the latter half of the Tokugawa period economic growth, however sluggish its pace was, took place in the form of rural industrialisation and the expansion of inter-regional trade. This paper addresses the following questions: how capital was mobilised for such rural-centred growth in production and commerce, and how the quasi-capital markets worked in both the Osaka economy and in the countryside, with special reference to trends in interest rates over time, in a pre-modern setting of market segmentation. The paper will argue that although Tokugawa Japan's formal institutions were far from ideal, the credit systems did function as quasi-capital markets reasonably well within each commercial network formed through relational contracting, and that for the Smithian process of early modern growth to work, inter-regional competition mattered more than institutional maturity of the nation's market environment.

Date: 2006-02
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-fmk, nep-his, nep-mac and nep-sea
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (7)

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