IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/csg/ajrcwp/1302.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Railroad expansion and entrepreneurship: Evidence from Meiji Japan

Author

Listed:
  • John Tang

Abstract

Railroads in Meiji Japan are credited with facilitating factor mobility as well as access to human and financial capital, but the impact on firms is unclear. Using a newly developed firm-level dataset and a difference-in-differences model that exploits the temporal and spatial variation of railroad expansion, I assess the relationship between railways and firm activity across Japan. Results indicate that railroad expansion corresponded with increased firm activity, particularly in manufacturing, although this effect is mitigated in less populous regions. These findings are consistent with industrial agglomeration in areas with larger markets and earlier development among both new and existing establishments.

Suggested Citation

  • John Tang, 2013. "Railroad expansion and entrepreneurship: Evidence from Meiji Japan," AJRC Working Papers 1302, Australia-Japan Research Centre, Crawford School of Public Policy, The Australian National University.
    • Handle: RePEc:csg:ajrcwp:1302
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://crawford.anu.edu.au/pdf/ajrc/wpapers/2013/201302.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Crafts, Nicholas & Mulatu, Abay, 2006. "How Did the Location of Industry Respond to Falling Transport Costs in Britain Before World War I?," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 66(3), pages 575-607, September.
    2. Card, David & Krueger, Alan B, 1994. "Minimum Wages and Employment: A Case Study of the Fast-Food Industry in New Jersey and Pennsylvania," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 84(4), pages 772-793, September.
    3. Leunig, Tim, 2010. "Social savings," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 30135, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    4. John P. Tang, 2011. "Technological leadership and late development: evidence from Meiji Japan, 1868–1912," Economic History Review, Economic History Society, vol. 64, pages 99-116, February.
    5. Jeremy Atack & Fred Bateman & Michael Haines & Robert A. Margo, 2009. "Did Railroads Induce or Follow Economic Growth? Urbanization and Population Growth in the American Midwest, 1850-60," NBER Working Papers 14640, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    6. Donaldson, Dave, 2010. "Railroads of the Raj: estimating the impact of transportation infrastructure," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 38368, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    7. Marcus DEJARDIN, 2001. "Entrepreneurship and Economic Growth: An Obvious Conjunction?," Development and Comp Systems 0110010, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    8. Dave Donaldson, 2010. "Railroads of the Raj: Estimating the Impact of Transportation Infrastructure," NBER Working Papers 16487, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    9. Tim Leunig, 2010. "Social Savings," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 24(5), pages 775-800, December.
    10. John P. Tang, 2011. "Technological leadership and late development: evidence from Meiji Japan, 1868–1912," Economic History Review, Economic History Society, vol. 64, pages 99-116, February.
    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. Rui Manuel Pereira, Alfredo Marvao Pereira and William J. Hausman, 2017. "Railroad Infrastructure Investments and Economic Development in the Antebellum United States," Journal of Economic Development, Chung-Ang Unviersity, Department of Economics, vol. 42(3), pages 1-16, September.
    2. Koyama, Mark & Moriguchi, Chiaki & Sng, Tuan-Hwee, 2018. "Geopolitics and Asia’s little divergence: State building in China and Japan after 1850," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 155(C), pages 178-204.

    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. repec:csg:ajrcwp:02 is not listed on IDEAS
    2. Brunt, Liam & Cannon, Edmund, 2013. "Integration in the English wheat market 1770-1820," Discussion Paper Series in Economics 12/2013, Norwegian School of Economics, Department of Economics.
    3. Monica Beuran & Marie Gachassin & Gaël Raballand, 2015. "Are There Myths on Road Impact and Transport in Sub-Saharan Africa?," Development Policy Review, Overseas Development Institute, vol. 33(5), pages 673-700, September.
    4. Banerjee, Abhijit & Duflo, Esther & Qian, Nancy, 2020. "On the road: Access to transportation infrastructure and economic growth in China," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 145(C).
    5. Hornung, Erik, 2012. "Railroads and Micro-regional Growth in Prussia," CAGE Online Working Paper Series 80, Competitive Advantage in the Global Economy (CAGE).
    6. Adam Storeygard, 2016. "Farther on down the Road: Transport Costs, Trade and Urban Growth in Sub-Saharan Africa," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 83(3), pages 1263-1295.
    7. He, Xiaobo, 2013. "Wages and Access to International Markets: Evidence from Urban China," MPRA Paper 44537, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    8. Fretz Stephan & Gorgas Christoph, 2015. "Regionaler Nutzen von Verkehrsinfrastruktur-Erweiterungen: Evidenz vom Schweizer Autobahnnetz," Perspektiven der Wirtschaftspolitik, De Gruyter, vol. 16(15), pages 57-71, March.
    9. Rui Manuel Pereira, Alfredo Marvao Pereira and William J. Hausman, 2017. "Railroad Infrastructure Investments and Economic Development in the Antebellum United States," Journal of Economic Development, Chung-Ang Unviersity, Department of Economics, vol. 42(3), pages 1-16, September.
    10. Wang, Xu & Zhang, Xiaobo & Xie, Zhuan & Huang, Yiping, 2016. "Roads to innovation: Firm-level evidence from China:," IFPRI discussion papers 1542, International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI).
    11. Kazuki Onji & John P. Tang, 2015. "A nation without a corporate income tax: Evidence from nineteenth century Japan," Discussion Papers in Economics and Business 15-12, Osaka University, Graduate School of Economics.
    12. Kazuko Kano & Takashi Kano & Kazutaka Takechi, 2012. "Nonparametric Identification and Estimation of the Number of Components in Multivariate Mixtures," Global COE Hi-Stat Discussion Paper Series gd12-246, Institute of Economic Research, Hitotsubashi University.
    13. Pablo D. Fajgelbaum & Edouard Schaal, 2020. "Optimal Transport Networks in Spatial Equilibrium," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 88(4), pages 1411-1452, July.
    14. Redding, Stephen J., 2016. "Goods trade, factor mobility and welfare," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 101(C), pages 148-167.
    15. Marie M Stack & Rob Ackrill & Martin Bliss, 2019. "Sugar trade and the role of historical colonial linkages," European Review of Agricultural Economics, Oxford University Press and the European Agricultural and Applied Economics Publications Foundation, vol. 46(1), pages 79-108.
    16. Michael E. Waugh & David Lagakos & Douglas Gollin, 2011. "Why Don't Developing Countries Import More Food?," 2011 Meeting Papers 1367, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    17. Venables, Anthony & Duranton, Gilles, 2018. "Place-Based Policies for Development," CEPR Discussion Papers 12889, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    18. Jie Bai & Jiahua Liu, 2019. "The Impact of Intranational Trade Barriers on Exports: Evidence from a Nationwide VAT Rebate Reform in China," CID Working Papers 373, Center for International Development at Harvard University.
    19. Kano, Kazuko & Kano, Takashi & Takechi, Kazutaka, 2013. "Exaggerated death of distance: Revisiting distance effects on regional price dispersions," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 90(2), pages 403-413.
    20. Tim Leunig, 2011. "Cart or Horse: Transport and Economic Growth," International Transport Forum Discussion Papers 2011/4, OECD Publishing.
    21. Muvawala, Joseph & Sebukeera, Hennery & Ssebulime, Kurayish, 2021. "Socio-economic impacts of transport infrastructure investment in Uganda: Insight from frontloading expenditure on Uganda's urban roads and highways," Research in Transportation Economics, Elsevier, vol. 88(C).

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • L26 - Industrial Organization - - Firm Objectives, Organization, and Behavior - - - Entrepreneurship
    • N75 - Economic History - - Economic History: Transport, International and Domestic Trade, Energy, and Other Services - - - Asia including Middle East
    • O53 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economywide Country Studies - - - 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:csg:ajrcwp:1302. 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: Akira Kinefuchi (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/ajrccau.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.