We explore how changes in ownership and managerial control affect the productivity and profitability of producers. Using detailed operational, financial, management, and ownership data from the Japanese cotton spinning industry at the turn of the last century, we find a more nuanced picture than...

Mitsubishi Corporation (Mitsubishi Shoji), a trading company under Mitsubishi Zaibatsu, increased its sales rapidly in the 1920s and 1930s, and threatened to catch up with Mitsui & Co. (Mitsui Bussan), the largest trading company in prewar Japan. In this paper, we constructed the data that...

In the late 1940s, the Japanese economy transited to a market economy from an economy under the government planning and control, which had continued since the period of the Sino-Japanese War. This paper explored the impact of the transition on the micro-aspect of the economy, focusing on the...

This paper investigates the extent, determinants, and implications of the political connections of firms at the peak of democracy in prewar Japan, identifying a firm as politically connected if one of its directors was simultaneously a member of the House of Representatives. We analyze the data...

Because of the unstable financial market after World War I, the Japanese financial system experienced a wave of bank mergers, which resulted in an increase in bank scale and the development of branch banking. In this paper, we explored the implications of the expansion of branch banking, using...

After the First Sino-Japanese War and the Russo-Japanese War, Japan annexed Korea in 1910. We exploit this event as a natural experiment to investigate the effect of improved market access on the population growth. It is found that the tariff reduction raised the growth rate of population, and...

This paper addresses a fundamental question on corporate governance, "What did corporate executives, outside directors and large shareholders really do ?" Although this question is essential, it has not been fully addressed in the literature, basically due to the constraint of relevant...

In this paper, we explored the structure and implications of interbank networks in pre-war Japan, focusing on director interlocking. It was found that approximately 60% of the banks had at least one connection with another bank through director interlocking. These connections resulted in the...

This manuscript is prepared as chapters of a new text book on Comparative Institutional Analysis edited by Masaki Nakabayashi and Shingo Ishiuguro. It explains the basic idea of Historical Comparative Institutional Analysis and the applications to the issues in the Japanese economic history,...

　　 In 1932, the Kwantung Army occupied Manchuria, the northeast part of China, and founded a puppet state, Manchukuo. The Kwantung Army and the Manchukuo government intended to develop heavy and chemical industries as well as munitions industries there, but they did not have a...