Hostname: page-component-76fb5796d-22dnz Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-27T16:15:25.750Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Institutions, Reforms, and Country Risk: Lessons from Japanese Government Debt in the Meiji Era

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 July 2012

Nathan Sussman  and
Yishay Yafeh
Nathan Sussman
Affiliation:
Lecturer, Economics Department, The Hebrew University, Mt. Scopus, Jerusalem 91905, Israel. Email: msussman@mscc.huji.ac.il, msyafeh@mscc.huji.ac.il.
Yishay Yafeh
Affiliation:
Lecturer, Economics Department, The Hebrew University, Mt. Scopus, Jerusalem 91905, Israel. Email: msussman@mscc.huji.ac.il, msyafeh@mscc.huji.ac.il.
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

We investigate the effect of the establishment of modern institutions on the risk premium associated with Japanese government bonds traded in London between 1870 and 1914. While most institutional innovations failed to elicit an immediate market response, the adoption of the gold standard did significantly reduce the perceived risk associated with Japanese bonds. In addition, some geopolitical events, especially the military victory over Russia, improved Japan's debt capacity.

Type
Symposium: High Politics and Low Finance
Information
The Journal of Economic History , Volume 60 , Issue 2 , June 2000 , pp. 442 - 467
Copyright
Copyright © The Economic History Association 2000

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Bank of Japan. Hundred Year Statistics of the Japanese Economy. Tokyo: Bank of Japan, 1966.Google Scholar
Beasley, William. The Rise of Modern Japan. New York: Weidenfeld Press, 1990.Google Scholar
Bordo, Michael, and Rockoff, Hugh. “The Gold Standard as a Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval.” This JOURNAL 56, no. 2, (1996): 389–428.Google Scholar
British Parliamentary Papers, Embassy and Consular Commercial Reports – Japan, Vol.6.Google Scholar
Calomiris, Charles. “The Motives of U.S. Debt-Management Policy, 1790–1880: Efficient Discrimination and Time Consistency.” Research in Economic History 13 (1991): 67–105.Google Scholar
Calomiris, Charles. Greenback Resumption and Silver Risk: The Economics and Politics of Monetary Regime Change in the United States, 1862–1900.” In Monetary Regimes in Transition, edited by Bordo, Michael and Capie, Forrest, 86–132. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994.Google Scholar
Christiano, Lawrence. “Searching for a Break in GNP.” Journal of Business and Economic Statistics 10, no. 3 (1992): 237–50.Google Scholar
Economist, various dates.Google Scholar
Edwards, Sebastian. “The Pricing of Bonds and Bank Loans in International Markets: An Empirical Analysis of Developing Countries' Foreign Borrowing.” European Economic Review 30, no. 3 (1986): 565–89.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Eichengreen, Bany. The Gold Standard in Theory and History. New York: Methuen, 1986.Google Scholar
Eichengreen, Barry, and Flandreau, Marc. “The Geography of the Gold Standard.” In Currency Convertibility: The Gold Standard and Beyond, edited by Braga de Macedo, Jorge, Eichengreen, Barry, and Jaime, Reis, 113–43. New York: Routledge, 1996.Google Scholar
Flandreau, Marc, Cacheux, Jacques Le, and Zumer, Frederic. “Stability Without a Pact? Lessons from the European Gold Standard, 1880–1914.” Economic Policy: A European Forum 26 (1998): 115–49.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gregory, Paul. “The Russian Balance of Payments, the Gold Standard, and Monetary Policy: A Historical Example of Foreign Capital Movements.” This JOURNAL 39, no. 2 (1979): 379–99.Google Scholar
International Herald Tribune, 11 12 1998.Google Scholar
Investors ' Monthly Manual, various dates.Google Scholar
London Times, various dates.Google Scholar
Lockwood, William. The Economic Development of Japan: Growth and Structural Change. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1968.Google Scholar
Mitchell, Brian. International Historical Statistics: Africa, Asia and Oceania, 1750–1988. New York: Stockton Press, 1995.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
National Bureau of Economic Research, Macroeconomic History Database. http://www.nber.org/data_index.html.Google Scholar
North, Douglass, and Weingast, Barry. “Constitutions and Commitment: The Evolution of Institutions Governing Public Choice in Seventeenth-Century England.” This JOURNAL 49, no. 4 (1989): 803–32.Google Scholar
Okazaki, Tetsuji. Kogyouka no Kiseki [The Locus of Industrialization]. Tokyo: Yomiuri Shimbun Press, 1997.Google Scholar
Perron, Philip. “The Great Crash, the Oil Price Shock, and the Unit Root Hypothesis.” Econometrica 57, no. 6 (1989): 1361–401.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rosovsky, Henry. Capital Formation in Japan, 1868–1940. New York: Free Press, 1961.Google Scholar
Sussman, Nathan, and Yafeh, Yishay. “The Gold Standard, the Cost of Foreign Debt, and Capital Market Integration: Historical Evidence from Japanese Government Debt.” [In French] Economie Intenationale 78, no. 2 (1999): 85–105.Google Scholar
Suzuki, Toshio. Japanese Government Loans on the London Capital Market, 1870–1913. London: Athlone, 1994.Google Scholar
Tamaki, Norio. Japanese Banking: A History, 1859–1959. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Willard, Kristen, Guinnane, Timothy, and Rosen, Harvey. “Turning Points in the Civil War: Views from the Greenbacks Market.” American Economic Review 86, no. 4 (1996): 1001–18.Google Scholar
Yamamura, Kozo. “Success Ill-Gotten? The Role of Meiji Militarism in Japan's Technological Success.” This JOURNAL 37, no. 1 (1977): 113–35.Google Scholar
Zivot, Eric, and Andrews, Donald. “Further Evidence on the Great Crash, the Oil Price Shock and the Unit Root Hypothesis.” Journal of Business and Economic Statistics 10, no. 3 (1992): 251–70.Google Scholar