Designing wartime economic controls: Productivity and firm dynamics in the Japanese cotton spinning industry, 1937–1939

In 1937, the Japanese government accelerated the expansion of its military expenditure and began to impose controls on the economy to maintain the balance of international payments. The controls were developed through trial and error. The cotton spinning industry was one of the industries most deeply affected by these controls. Initially, the government simply reduced the allocation of foreign exchange for raw cotton imports. However, because this measure prevented the export of cotton products, especially to countries outside the yen bloc, a new scheme of control, the export–import link system, was adopted from the second half of 1938. This scheme was intentionally designed to give firms incentives to export to non-yen bloc countries and to incorporate elements of market mechanism into economic control. Analyzing firm-level data, we find that under the link system, firms with higher labor productivity tended to grow faster, as occurs under a market economy. This relationship was not observed during the early stage of the control. This difference is reflected in the pattern of the change in aggregate labor productivity. Under the export–import link system, the positive reallocation effect was substantial, similar to a market economy, whereas it was almost zero under the early controls. These findings indicate that the design of controls matters for the performance of controlled economies. Key words: Economic control, war economy, World War II, productivity, textile industry, Japan JEL classification numbers: D22, L22, L52, L67, N45, N65