This paper investigates the impact of bank consolidations promoted by government policy, using data from pre-war Japan when the Ministry of Finance promoted bank consolidations by dint of the Bank Law of 1927. It is found that policy-promoted consolidation had a positive effect on deposit...

In this paper, we identify the common organizational and institutional factor behind the success and failure of the Japanese economy, focusing on the industrial policy and the government-firm relationship. The key concept is the bureau-pluralism. The bureau-pluralism in Japan is an outcome of...

In this paper, we examine the influences of the Showa Financial Crisis on Mitsubishi Bank, one of the largest banks in prewar Japan, using its daily financial data. It is known that the Crisis gave contrasting effects on the major banks and the other ones. Large amount of deposits moved from the...

In this paper we explore the long-term change of the industrial organization of the Japanese banking industry and its efficiency implication. In postwar Japan, the "convoy administration" by the Ministry of Finance rigidly controlled the entry into and exit from the banking industry, as well as...

The aim of this paper is to evaluate the degree of government intervention in the allocation of private bank funds in 1950's Japan. As a part of the transition process to a market economy, financial controls dating since the period of WWII, were abolished in 1949. By the early 1950's, the...

In the early 1950s, "industrial rationalization," i.e. renovation and modernization of industrial equipments became the focus of the industrial policy as well as the corporate strategy. In this paper, I explored its historical background and implication. Estimating the vintage of capital stock...

This paper explores the relationship between the political system and fiscal performance, focusing on the prewar Japanese history. Japan experienced substantial changes in the political system as well as fiscal performance, from the late nineteenth century to the end of the Second World War....

In this paper we identify networks among banks in pre-war Japan based on director interlocking data, and explore their implications. It was found that nearly 60% of banks had interlocking ties with at least one other bank. The large regional banks tended to have many interlocking ties. One of...

This paper examines the drawing up process as well as implementation of the priority production policy in late 1940's, focusing on the aspect of material allocation and production. As is well-known, the priority production was extremely inward-oriented policy. However, at the starting point, the...

This paper explains a framework to analyze an institutional change and its applications. The motivation is to see whether an institutional change occurs through changes in the behaviors of the incumbent members of a society, or it occurs thorough a change in the member population. If the latter...