2004 Fiscal Year Final Research Report Summary
Urban Small Businesses in Japan's Indigenous Economic Development
| Project/Area Number |
14530087
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| Research Category |
Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (C)
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| Allocation Type | Single-year Grants |
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| Section | 一般 |
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| Research Field |
Economic history
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| Research Institution | The University of Tokyo |
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Principal Investigator |
TANIMOTO Masayuki The University of Tokyo, Graduate School of Economics, Associate Professor, 大学院・経済学研究科, 助教授 (10197535)
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| Project Period (FY) |
2002 – 2004
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| Keywords | indigenous economic development / Urban small business / Urban small manufacturing / Industrial cluster / toy industry / Urban cluster / dispersed production system / Tokyo |
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| Research Abstract |
The aim of this research was to explore Japan's pre-war industrialization from the viewpoint of urban small-scale businesses. As we have pointed out in the previous studies, the industrialization process in modern Japan included so-called "indigenous economic development". A typical case can be seen in the development of rural weaving industry before the World War I. There functioned the production form besides factory such as putting-out system based on the peasant's sideline work. After the World War I, however, putting-out system in the weaving industry rapidly gave way to factory system that equipped the power looms. Contrastively, the industrial development in large cities, especially in Tokyo during the Inter-war period, entailed the increase of newly formed petty and small workshops. There functioned the production system based on the complex transaction of merchants, factories, small workshops and domestic works. Toy manufacturing, which developed as an export industry in the I
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nter-war Tokyo, was one of the typical industries based on that production system. As the urban area lacked the peasants and the intimate communities, urban small businesses stood on the different foundations. The skill was trained in the quasi-apprentice system where juvenile workers experienced a sort of on-the-job training. Based on this skill formation, not a few employees set up their own businesses and competed even with the wholesalers. Their activities were supported by the positive externality of the cluster. The formal and informal institutions played significant roles to prevent the transactions from disorder. The role of production organizer that combined the function of the merchant was also important. The combination of the merchant and the household economy, together with the social and institutional basis, promoted an industrialization based on the small businesses. These results of this research indicates that the "indigenous economic development", although the arenas of which changed from rural area to urban area, still played a significant roles in Japanese economic development after the W.W.I. Less
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