4 results
1 - Economic change in the nineteenth century
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- By E. Sydney Crawcour, Australian National University
- Edited by Kozo Yamamura, University of Washington
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- Book:
- The Economic Emergence of Modern Japan
- Published online:
- 04 August 2010
- Print publication:
- 13 June 1997, pp 1-49
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Summary
At the beginning of the nineteenth century, Japan was a preindustrial agricultural economy with technology and living standards not greatly different from those of other preindustrial areas of Asia. If a Frenchman of 1600 had been able to see the Japan of 1800, he would have been impressed by obvious differences in dress, manners, and architecture, but most features of economic life would have been readily understandable to him. Had the same Frenchman visited Japan a century later, he would have been bewildered. By the end of the century, the nation's output of goods and services had increased fourfold, and the proportion contributed by industry had at least doubled, whereas the contribution of agriculture had declined to less than half the total output. Much of the infrastructure necessary for the development of an industrial economy, such as transport, communications, ports, and financial institutions, had been created, and a modest but crucial nucleus of modern factory industry was becoming a viable growth sector. This was a century of economic change, and the change was at an increasing rate.
Explanations for this change represent both a variety of ideologies and a variety of views of the facts. Most Japanese historians have viewed it as a transition from a feudal to a capitalist society within the framework of the Marxian theory of stages of economic development.
2 - Industrialization and technological change, 1885–1920
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- By E. Sydney Crawcour, Australian National University
- Edited by Kozo Yamamura, University of Washington
-
- Book:
- The Economic Emergence of Modern Japan
- Published online:
- 04 August 2010
- Print publication:
- 13 June 1997, pp 50-115
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- Chapter
- Export citation
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Summary
ECONOMIC GROWTH, 1885–1920
The stabilization of the economy following the Matsukata deflation of the early 1880s marks the end of a transitional period in Japan's economic development and the beginning of the initial phase of modern economic growth that continued to the end of World War I. By the mid-1880s the costs of the Restoration and its aftermath had largely been met, and a start had been made on building an economic infrastructure. Although economic activity and life-styles were still scarcely touched by modern technology and organization, the seeds of a modern economic sector in industry, trade, and finance, on which Japan's future was to depend, were being sown.
It is from the 1880s that a reasonably reliable and comprehensive set of quantitative estimates (the LTES series) is available. Prepared in the 1960s and subsequently adjusted in some details, these estimates have provided the material for some sophisticated analyses of Japan's experience. The importance of quantitative data for the description and understanding of economic growth scarcely needs emphasizing. There are, however, caveats regarding these estimates. Although based on the consideration and evaluation of all available data, these estimates have been made into a consistent system by reference to an overall model that makes assumptions about the relationships of the various individual series to one another. Gaps in the data for the period before the late 1880s, moreover, can be filled only on the basis of some preconceptions about the speed and direction of growth.
9 - Economic change in the nineteenth century
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- By E. Sydney Crawcour, Australian National University
- Edited by Marius B. Jansen
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- Book:
- The Cambridge History of Japan
- Published online:
- 28 March 2008
- Print publication:
- 28 July 1989, pp 569-617
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- Chapter
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Summary
At the beginning of the nineteenth century, Japan was a preindustrial agricultural economy with technology and living standards not greatly different from those of other preindustrial areas of Asia. If a Frenchman of 1600 had been able to see the Japan of 1800, he would have been impressed by obvious differences in dress, manners, and architecture, but most features of economic life would have been readily understandable to him. Had the same Frenchman visited Japan a century later, he would have been bewildered. By the end of the century, the nation's output of goods and services had increased fourfold, and the proportion contributed by industry had at least doubled, whereas the contribution of agriculture had declined to less than half the total output. Much of the infrastructure necessary for the development of an industrial economy, such as transport, communications, ports, and financial institutions, had been created, and a modest but crucial nucleus of modern factory industry was becoming a viable growth sector. This was a century of economic change, and the change was at an increasing rate.
Explanations for this change represent both a variety of ideologies and a variety of views of the facts. Most Japanese historians have viewed it as a transition from a feudal to a capitalist society within the framework of the Marxian theory of stages of economic development. Even granted that a relative latecomer such as Japan might be able to take advantage of some shortcuts, it was not easy to see how such a change, which took centuries in Europe, could occur within a few decades in Japan.
8 - Industrialization and technological change, 1885–1920
- from PART III - ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT
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- By E. Sydney Crawcour, The Australian National University
- Edited by Peter Duus
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- Book:
- The Cambridge History of Japan
- Published online:
- 28 March 2008
- Print publication:
- 28 April 1989, pp 383-450
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- Chapter
- Export citation
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Summary
ECONOMIC GROWTH, 1885–1920
The stabilization of the economy following the Matsukata deflation of the early 1880s marks the end of a transitional period in Japan's economic development and the beginning of the initial phase of modern economic growth that continued to the end of World War I. By the mid-1880s the costs of the Restoration and its aftermath had largely been met, and a start had been made on building an economic infrastructure. Although economic activity and life-styles were still scarcely touched by modern technology and organization, the seeds of a modern economic sector in industry, trade, and finance, on which Japan's future was to depend, were being sown.
It is from the 1880s that a reasonably reliable and comprehensive set of quantitative estimates (the LTES series) is available. Prepared in the 1960s and subsequently adjusted in some details, these estimates have provided the material for some sophisticated analyses of Japan's experience. The importance of quantitative data for the description and understanding of economic growth scarcely needs emphasizing. There are, however, caveats regarding these estimates. Although based on the consideration and evaluation of all available data, these estimates have been made into a consistent system by reference to an overall model that makes assumptions about the relationships of the various individual series to one another. Gaps in the data for the period before the late 1880s, moreover, can be filled only on the basis of some preconceptions about the speed and direction of growth.