Effects of Aggregate Shocks on the Productivity of Farm Households in Prewar Japan
Effects of Aggregate Shocks on the Productivity of Farm Households in Prewar Japan
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DOI：
10.18480/jjae.21.0_1
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发表时间：
2019-03
期刊：
影响因子：
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通讯作者：
T. Fujie;Tetsuji Senda
中科院分区：
文献类型：
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作者：
T. Fujie;Tetsuji Senda
Man-made and natural disasters such as global economic crises and heavy earthquakes have the characteristics of aggregate shocks, which makes mutual insurance and insurance in the local area difficult. Such aggregate shocks have more serious consequences in developing economies, where various markets, including insurance markets, are incomplete. During the development stage of prewar Japan, the global depression triggered by the plunge in stock prices in the United States in October 1929, led to the lifting of the gold ban and a decline in silk thread prices due to weak silk thread exports. Subsequently, in October 1930, the price of rice collapsed. This was partly due to a bumper harvest. These events had huge impacts on the rural economy of Japan, and are known as the Showa depression (Hayashi, 2003). Inomata (1934) recorded the situation of rural areas during this depression. The reportage states that many farmers had large debts, and the circumstances were such that they had to cease the use of fertilizers and recurrent goods. There is an extensive literature on farm households during the Showa depression, mainly in the fields of agricultural and economic history (for example, Ouchi, 1960; Kurihara, 1974). They note the robustness and stability of middle-scale farmers. In addition, the Showa depression is considered to be the trigger for the decomposition of farmer classes in the inter-war period. However, most of these studies are qualitative analyses based on historical materials. In recent years, some studies have been published that use econometric analysis of the inter-war period microdata before and after the Showa depression. Examples of such research include: Saito (2009), who examined the relationship between the members in farm households and labor
