The Role of Regional Society in Public Goods Provision during the Period from the Early Modern to Modern Times:A Comparative and Historical Aproach

2016 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 25285104
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (B)
• Allocation Type: Partial Multi-year Fund
• Section: 一般
• Research Field: Economic history
• Research Institution: The University of Tokyo
• Principal Investigator: TANIMOTO Masayuki 東京大学, 経済学研究科(研究院), 教授 (10197535)
• Co-Investigator(Kenkyū-buntansha): 木下 光生 奈良大学, 文学部, 准教授 (10520629) ; 飯田 恭 慶應義塾大学, 経済学部, 教授 (20282551) ; 荒武 賢一朗 東北大学, 東北アジア研究センター, 准教授 (90581140)
• Project Period (FY): 2013-04-01 – 2017-03-31
• Keywords: 公共財 / 財政 / 地域社会 / 救貧 / 森林管理 / インフラストラクチャー / 領主 / fiscal state

Outline of Final Research Achievements

This study revealed how people tackle issues that were not managed well through the market by investigating efforts made for the provision of "public goods" in the early modern economies from the perspective of comparative socioeconomic history. The study revealed that the emerging "regional society" based on the loosely integrated unit of village played a significant role in complementing or even substituting the task of public goods provision in Japan. Setting this Japanese case as a benchmark, the case studies on Prussia, England and China clarified the diverse methods of public goods provision among societies. This result is expected to relativize the role of state, as well as the perspective of the argument about the "fiscal state" in the early modern period, proposing a rather different picture to the traditional framework of comparative history that has been inclined to measure the distance from "advanced" Western Europe.

Free Research Field

Economic History