Disentangling the Effects of Technological and Organizational Changes during the Rise of the Factory: The Case of the Japanese Weaving Industry, 1905-1914

This paper contributes the“factory debate†by disentangling the effects of technological change and organizational change during the rise of the factory using unique data from the weaving industry in early twentieth-century Japan. In this period, a variety of production organizations coexisted, which provides us with an excellent opportunity to evaluate the implication of the factory system. Using regression analyses and observation of descriptive data, we find that production value per worker was four to seven times larger in nonpowered factories compared with weavers-out workers under the putting-out system, and that the difference reflects that in the number of work days and work intensity between factories and weavers-out workers.