IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/wly/apechr/v66y2026i1p3-32.html

How did Japan catch‐up with the West? Some implications of recent revisions to Japan's historical growth record

Author

Listed:
  • Stephen Broadberry
  • Kyoji Fukao
  • Tokihiko Settsu

Abstract

Revised GDP data suggest that Japan was more than one‐third richer in 1874 than suggested by Maddison, and that Meiji period growth built on earlier development. Despite trend GDP per capita growth during the Tokugawa Shogunate, the catching‐up process only started after 1890 with respect to Britain, and after World War I with respect to the United States. Although catching‐up was driven by productivity growth in manufacturing, Japanese export success also depended on limiting the growth of real wages. Despite claims of a distinctive Asian path of labour‐intensive industrialisation, capital played an important role in the catching‐up process.

Suggested Citation

  • Stephen Broadberry & Kyoji Fukao & Tokihiko Settsu, 2026. "How did Japan catch‐up with the West? Some implications of recent revisions to Japan's historical growth record," Asia-Pacific Economic History Review, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 66(1), pages 3-32, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:wly:apechr:v:66:y:2026:i:1:p:3-32
    DOI: 10.1111/aehr.70012
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/aehr.70012
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1111/aehr.70012?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    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:wly:apechr:v:66:y:2026:i:1:p:3-32. 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: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://doi.org/10.1111/(ISSN)2832-157X .

    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.