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...

In pre-war Japan, many banks were controlled by industrial companies through capital and personal relationships. Those banks are known as "organ banks" (kikan ginko). Organ banks engaged in unsound lending to their related companies, which resulted in damage to the banks' financial positions and...

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,...

This paper examines how the close ties between banks and non-banking firms-the so-called "organ bank" relationship in Japanese banking literature-declined through bank failures and banking consolidations in pre-war Japan. With a unique dataset compiled from 1,007 Japanese banks that were doing...

In prewar Japan, many banks were controlled by industrial companies through capital and personal relationships. Those banks are called "organ banks" (kikan ginko). Organ banks engaged in unsound lending to their related companies, which gave damage to the banks' financial conditions, and...

In this paper we examined effects of bank consolidations on the financial system, using the data on the Japanese banking industry before the Second World War, when the first bank merger wave occurred. The focuses of our analysis are the governance structure and performance of banks. With respect...

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 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...