IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/tky/fseres/2007cf517.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The Role of the Courts in Economic Development: The Case of Prewar Japan

Author

Listed:
  • Masaki Nakabayashi

    (Institute of Social Science, University of Tokyo)

  • Tetsuji Okazaki

    (Faculty of Economics, University of Tokyo)

Abstract

In this paper, we explore the role of the legal system in economic development, focusing on its relationship to the role of private mechanisms in contract enforcement. We use long-term prefecture-level panel data that cover the early stages of industrialization and urbanization in Japan. We found that industrialization increased the demand for civil lawsuits, but that this was conditional on urbanization. In other words, increased demand for civil suits occurred only where industrialization and urbanization simultaneously progressed. At the same time, the inefficiency of the legal system impeded industrial growth, but only conditional on urbanization. That is, the inefficiency of the legal system impeded industrialization only in urban areas. These findings suggest that community-based contract enforcement mechanisms worked in rural areas and that these mechanisms were replaced by the formal legal system as urbanization progressed and community ties declined.

Suggested Citation

  • Masaki Nakabayashi & Tetsuji Okazaki, 2007. "The Role of the Courts in Economic Development: The Case of Prewar Japan," CIRJE F-Series CIRJE-F-517, CIRJE, Faculty of Economics, University of Tokyo.
    • Handle: RePEc:tky:fseres:2007cf517
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.cirje.e.u-tokyo.ac.jp/research/dp/2007/2007cf517.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Okazaki, Tetsuji, 2005. "The role of the merchant coalition in pre-modern Japanese economic development: an historical institutional analysis," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 42(2), pages 184-201, April.
    2. Allen, Franklin & Qian, Jun & Qian, Meijun, 2005. "Law, finance, and economic growth in China," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 77(1), pages 57-116, July.
    3. Blundell, Richard & Bond, Stephen, 1998. "Initial conditions and moment restrictions in dynamic panel data models," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 87(1), pages 115-143, August.
    4. Daniel M. Bernhofen & John C. Brown, 2004. "A Direct Test of the Theory of Comparative Advantage: The Case of Japan," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 112(1), pages 48-67, February.
    5. Masahiko Aoki, 2001. "Toward a Comparative Institutional Analysis," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 0262011875, April.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

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


    Cited by:

    1. Allen, Franklin & Qian, Jun & Zhang, Chenying, 2011. "An Alternative View on Law, Institutions, Finance and Growth," Working Papers 11-64, University of Pennsylvania, Wharton School, Weiss Center.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Guo, Shu & Zhang, ZhongXiang, 2023. "Green credit policy and total factor productivity: Evidence from Chinese listed companies," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 128(C).
    2. Guariglia, Alessandra & Poncet, Sandra, 2008. "Could financial distortions be no impediment to economic growth after all? Evidence from China," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 36(4), pages 633-657, December.
    3. Chen, Zhiyuan & Li, Yong & Zhang, Jie, 2016. "The bank–firm relationship: Helping or grabbing?," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 42(C), pages 385-403.
    4. Poncet, Sandra & Steingress, Walter & Vandenbussche, Hylke, 2010. "Financial constraints in China: Firm-level evidence," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 21(3), pages 411-422, September.
    5. Lu, Yao & Li, Lu & Zhan, Huanqi & Zhan, Minghua, 2024. "Fintech, information heterogeneity, and the regional distribution effects of corporate financing constraints," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 137(C).
    6. Gu, Tao, 2019. "Wage determination and fixed capital investment in an imperfect financial market: the case of China," MPRA Paper 95986, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    7. Chen, Minjia & Guariglia, Alessandra, 2013. "Internal financial constraints and firm productivity in China: Do liquidity and export behavior make a difference?," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 41(4), pages 1123-1140.
    8. Thumrongvit, Patara & Kim, Yoonbai & Pyun, Chong Soo, 2013. "Linking the missing market: The effect of bond markets on economic growth," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 27(C), pages 529-541.
    9. Ablam Estel Apeti & Jean-Louis Combes & Eyah Denise Edoh, 2023. "Entrepreneurship in developing countries: can mobile money play a role?," Working Papers hal-04081304, HAL.
    10. Jun Du & Alessandra Guariglia & Alexander Newman, 2010. "Does social capital affect the financing decisions of Chinese small and medium-sized enterprises?," Discussion Papers 10/13, University of Nottingham, GEP.
    11. Yaojun Yao, 2010. "Financial Intermediation Development and Economic Growth: Does the Chinese Counterexample Exist?," China & World Economy, Institute of World Economics and Politics, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, vol. 18(5), pages 22-36, September.
    12. Bengt Söderlund & Patrik Gustavsson Tingvall, 2017. "Capital Freedom, Financial Development and Provincial Economic Growth in China," The World Economy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 40(4), pages 764-787, April.
    13. Go Yano & Maho Shiraishi, 0. "Economic and Political Motivations in Debt Finance in China: Bank Lending and Trade Credit Offering," Comparative Economic Studies, Palgrave Macmillan;Association for Comparative Economic Studies, vol. 0, pages 1-42.
    14. Shailer, Greg & Wang, Kun, 2015. "Government ownership and the cost of debt for Chinese listed corporations," Emerging Markets Review, Elsevier, vol. 22(C), pages 1-17.
    15. Pindado, Julio & Requejo, Ignacio & Rivera, Juan C., 2017. "Economic forecast and corporate leverage choices: The role of the institutional environment," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 51(C), pages 121-144.
    16. Muhammad Kaleem Khan & Ahmad Kaleem & Salman Zulfiqar & Umair Akram, 2019. "Innovation Investment: Behaviour Of Chinese Firms Towards Financing Sources," International Journal of Innovation Management (ijim), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 23(07), pages 1-29, October.
    17. Guariglia, Alessandra & Liu, Xiaoxuan & Song, Lina, 2011. "Internal finance and growth: Microeconometric evidence on Chinese firms," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 96(1), pages 79-94, September.
    18. Wenfei Li & Cen Wu & Liping Xu & Qingquan Tang, 2017. "Bank connections and the speed of leverage adjustment: evidence from China's listed firms," Accounting and Finance, Accounting and Finance Association of Australia and New Zealand, vol. 57(5), pages 1349-1381, December.
    19. Hasan, Iftekhar & Wachtel, Paul & Zhou, Mingming, 2009. "Institutional development, financial deepening and economic growth: Evidence from China," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 33(1), pages 157-170, January.
    20. Langzi Chen & Zhihong Chen & Jian Li, 2019. "Can Trade Credit Maintain Sustainable R&D Investment of SMEs?—Evidence from China," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(3), pages 1-16, February.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • K10 - Law and Economics - - Basic Areas of Law - - - General (Constitutional Law)
    • O12 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Microeconomic Analyses of Economic Development
    • N45 - Economic History - - Government, War, Law, International Relations, and Regulation - - - Asia including Middle East

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:tky:fseres:2007cf517. 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.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with 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: CIRJE administrative office (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/ritokjp.html .

    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.