IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/cup/jechis/v54y1994i02p307-324_01.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The Perils of Lifetime Employment Systems: Productivity Advance in the Indian and Japanese Textile Industries, 1920–1938

Author

Listed:
  • Wolcott, Susan

Abstract

In the interwar period, Japanese textile firms were able to greatly increase labor efficiency and become the world's main exporter of cotton textiles. Meanwhile, the Indian industry stagnated and was forced to retreat behind tariff walls. This paper argues that the flexibility of the Japanese work force stemmed from its high turnover; the Indian laborers were collectively inflexible in defending lifetime careers against technical changes that reduced labor demand. As the industry requires only a few easily acquired skills, a committed work force was actually a disadvantage to Indian management.

Suggested Citation

  • Wolcott, Susan, 1994. "The Perils of Lifetime Employment Systems: Productivity Advance in the Indian and Japanese Textile Industries, 1920–1938," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 54(2), pages 307-324, June.
    • Handle: RePEc:cup:jechis:v:54:y:1994:i:02:p:307-324_01
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.cambridge.org/core/product/identifier/S0022050700014492/type/journal_article
    File Function: link to article abstract page
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Oro, Oro Ufuo & Alagidede, Paul, 2018. "The Nature of the finance–growth relationship: Evidence from a panel of oil-producing countries," Economic Analysis and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 60(C), pages 89-102.
    2. Boyer, Robert, 1995. "Contemporary transformations of the japanese wage labor nexus in historical retrospect and some international comparisons," CEPREMAP Working Papers (Couverture Orange) 9517, CEPREMAP.
    3. Canton, E.J.F. & de Groot, H.L.F. & Nahuis, R., 1999. "Vested Interests and Resistance to Technology Adoption," Other publications TiSEM 0ccbafa5-3dcf-45f7-88b8-0, Tilburg University, School of Economics and Management.
    4. Alejandro Ayuso‐Díaz & Antonio Tena‐Junguito, 2020. "Trade in the shadow of power: Japanese industrial exports in the interwar years," Economic History Review, Economic History Society, vol. 73(3), pages 815-843, August.
    5. Ashvin Ahuja & Thammarak Moenjak, 2002. "Economic Arrangements and Long-Term Growth in Thailand," Working Papers 2002-05, Monetary Policy Group, Bank of Thailand.
    6. Klaus Desmet & Stephen Parente, 2014. "Resistance to Technology Adoption: The Rise and Decline of Guilds," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 17(3), pages 437-458, July.
    7. Bishnupriya Gupta, 2011. "Wages, unions, and labour productivity: evidence from Indian cotton mills," Economic History Review, Economic History Society, vol. 64, pages 76-98, February.
    8. Boyer, Robert & Juillard, Michel, 1998. "The contemporary Japanese crisis and the transformations of the wage labor nexus," CEPREMAP Working Papers (Couverture Orange) 9822, CEPREMAP.
    9. Roy, Tirthankar, 2021. "Useful & reliable: technological transformation in colonial India," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 113442, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    10. Klaus Desmet & Stephen L. Parente, 2006. "Market Size, Trade, and the Resistance to the Adoption of Better Technology," 2006 Meeting Papers 264, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    11. Ramamurthy, Priti, 2000. "The Cotton Commodity Chain, Women, Work and Agency in India and Japan: The Case for Feminist Agro-Food Systems Research," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 28(3), pages 551-578, March.
    12. Roy, Tirthankar, 2014. "Technology in Colonial India: Three Discourses," CAGE Online Working Paper Series 198, Competitive Advantage in the Global Economy (CAGE).
    13. Stephane Straub, 2011. "Infrastructure and Development: A Critical Appraisal of the Macro-level Literature," Journal of Development Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 47(5), pages 683-708.
    14. Roberto Bonfatti & Björn Brey, 2020. "Trade Disruption, Industrialisation, and the Setting Sun of British Colonial Rule in India," CESifo Working Paper Series 8461, CESifo.
    15. Robert C. Allen, 2008. "A Review of Gregory Clark's A Farewell to Alms: A Brief Economic History of the World," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 46(4), pages 946-973, December.
    16. Canton, Erik J. F. & de Groot, Henri L. F. & Nahuis, Richard, 2002. "Vested interests, population ageing and technology adoption," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 18(4), pages 631-652, November.
    17. Mukherjee, Anirban & Sen, Shankhajit, 2022. "Social fragmentation and productivity in colonial India," SocArXiv zmfjn, Center for Open Science.
    18. Jerzmanowski, Michal, 2007. "Total factor productivity differences: Appropriate technology vs. efficiency," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 51(8), pages 2080-2110, November.
    19. Gupta, Bishnupriya, 2006. "Unions, Wages and Labour Productivity: Evidence from Indian Cotton Mills," Economic Research Papers 269646, University of Warwick - Department of Economics.
    20. Aditi Dixit & Elise van Nederveen Meerkerk, 2022. "Supply of labour during early industrialisation: Agricultural systems, textile factory work and gender in Japan and India, ca. 1880–1940," The Indian Economic & Social History Review, , vol. 59(2), pages 223-255, April.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:cup:jechis:v:54:y:1994:i:02:p:307-324_01. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Kirk Stebbing (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.cambridge.org/jeh .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.