This paper analyses the effects of schooling, outside work experience and job tenure on human capital formation, using the personal history data of white collar employees of Mitsubishi Zaibatsu in prewar Japan. For all samples including both engineers and clerks, the rate of return to schooling...

This paper investigates how ownership changes affect the plant performance, focusing on the cotton spinning industry in early twentieth century Japan, where many plants experienced ownership changes. Through analyses of detailed plant-level data, it is revealed that, after ownership changes,...

The central bank as the Lender of Last Resort (LLR) is faced with a trade off between the stability of the financial system and the "moral hazard" of banks. In this paper we explore how this trade off was dealt with by the Bank of Japan (BOJ) in the pre-war period, and how LLR lending by the BOJ...

This paper studies the determinants of agrarian tenancy contract choice and its implication on productivity in prewar Japan. Rapid agricultural growth under extensive tenancy relationships in prewar Japan was achieved with the prevalence of a unique rent reduction contract, which was more...

A number of studies have revealed that the effect of industrial policy on productivity growth is negative. Is this because industrial policy fails to control the activities of firms, or because it can effectively control them? This paper attempts to answer these questions, using firm-level data...

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 paper investigates the impact of bank consolidations promoted by government policy, using data from prewar Japan, when the financial authorities promoted them by dint of the Bank Law in 1927. It finds that the policy-promoted consolidation had a positive effect on the deposit growth,...

Economic historians have long accepted the view that in prewar Japan, many of the banks were closely connected with certain industrial companies, and those banks loosely gave loans to the connected companies. However, there has been no attempt to test this view quantitatively. In this paper, we...

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,...

The Japanese aircraft industry, which was of very small scale before World War II, became Japanfs largest manufacturing industry by the end of the war. In this paper, we explore the basis for the growth of the aircraft industry during this time by focusing on the No. 5 Works of Mitsubishi Heavy...