介绍：
明治时代代表了日本历史上从1868年10月23日到1912年7月30日的这段时期。由于其在经济，政治和国际上的重要性，这是日本历史上的关键时期。 1867年明治天皇升天后，它代表日本恢复了对天皇的统治。明治天皇当时只有15岁，因此他的政府由一小撮顾问组成，他们在幕后进行统治，因为天皇还太年轻，无法做出他们认为的深思熟虑的决定。在此期间，与其他亚洲国家一样，日本也被迫与许多西方国家签署不平等和不平等条约。这样，西方国家就在日本获得了强大的法律和政治权力。为了恢复日本的独立并在世界上享有尊敬的国家的地位，明治天皇聚集政府的首要任务之一是通过各种改革（包括经济改革）恢复日本的独立和主权。对于明治时期的日本知事，明治维新是为了实现中央集权政府，强大的军事影响力，能够满足日常必需品需求的工厂以及稳定的银行和货币体系（Tang，2011年）。
明治时期是日本经济改革的重要转变时期，我对这段时期的变化特别着迷。通过这种方式，本文旨在探讨明治时期日本现代经济增长的原因和后果。本文使用的经济理论包括Solow-Swan模型，对资本主义经济，农业经济的分析等。Solow-Swan模型是一种经典的经济模型，它使用一定的时间来评估一定时期内的长期经济增长。新古典经济学框架（Cai，Ye＆Gu，2014）。该模型将分析包括资本积累，人口增长，劳动生产率和技术进步在内的许多因素，以解释日本明治时期的长期经济增长。
Introduction:The Meiji era represents the time period from October 23, 1868 to July 30, 1912 within Japan’s history. It is a crucial time period in Japan’s history due to its economic, political and international importance. After Emperor Meiji’s ascension in 1867, it represented that Japan has restored its power back to the emperor. Emperor Meiji was only fifteen years-old at that time, so his government was consisted of small groups of advisors who were ruling behind the curtain, as the emperor was too young to make thoughtful decisions as they believed. During that time, like other Asian countries, Japan was also forced to sign unfair as well as unequal treaties with many western nations. In this way, the western nations were given strong legal and political power within Japan. In order to regain Japan’s independence and set its place as a respected nation in the world, one of the top priorities of the Emperor Meiji’s clustered government was to regain its independence and sovereignty through various reforms, which also included economic reform. For the governor of Japan during the Meiji period, the Meiji restoration was to achieve a centralized government, strong military influence, factories to produce necessary daily needs and a stable banking and currency system (Tang, 2011).
Meiji period serves as such an important transformation period for Japan’s economy reformation, and I was particularly fascinated with the changes during this time period. In this way, this paper aims to explore the causes and consequences of the modern economic growth of Japan during the Meiji period. The economic theories used in paper include the Solow-Swan model, analysis of the capitalistic economy, agricultural economy and etc. The Solow-Swan model is a classical economic model to assess the long-run economic growth within a certain period of time using the neoclassical economy framework (Cai, Ye & Gu, 2014). This model will analyze many factors including the capital accumulation, population growth, labor productivity and technological advancement, in order to explain the long-term economic growth during the Meiji period in Japan. Introduction:
The Meiji era represents the time period from October 23, 1868 to July 30, 1912 within Japan’s history. It is a crucial time period in Japan’s history due to its economic, political and international importance. After Emperor Meiji’s ascension in 1867, it represented that Japan has restored its power back to the emperor. Emperor Meiji was only fifteen years-old at that time, so his government was consisted of small groups of advisors who were ruling behind the curtain, as the emperor was too young to make thoughtful decisions as they believed. During that time, like other Asian countries, Japan was also forced to sign unfair as well as unequal treaties with many western nations. In this way, the western nations were given strong legal and political power within Japan. In order to regain Japan’s independence and set its place as a respected nation in the world, one of the top priorities of the Emperor Meiji’s clustered government was to regain its independence and sovereignty through various reforms, which also included economic reform. For the governor of Japan during the Meiji period, the Meiji restoration was to achieve a centralized government, strong military influence, factories to produce necessary daily needs and a stable banking and currency system (Tang, 2011).
Meiji period serves as such an important transformation period for Japan’s economy reformation, and I was particularly fascinated with the changes during this time period. In this way, this paper aims to explore the causes and consequences of the modern economic growth of Japan during the Meiji period. The economic theories used in paper include the Solow-Swan model, analysis of the capitalistic economy, agricultural economy and etc. The Solow-Swan model is a classical economic model to assess the long-run economic growth within a certain period of time using the neoclassical economy framework (Cai, Ye & Gu, 2014). This model will analyze many factors including the capital accumulation, population growth, labor productivity and technological advancement, in order to explain the long-term economic growth during the Meiji period in Japan. Introduction:
The Meiji era represents the time period from October 23, 1868 to July 30, 1912 within Japan’s history. It is a crucial time period in Japan’s history due to its economic, political and international importance. After Emperor Meiji’s ascension in 1867, it represented that Japan has restored its power back to the emperor. Emperor Meiji was only fifteen years-old at that time, so his government was consisted of small groups of advisors who were ruling behind the curtain, as the emperor was too young to make thoughtful decisions as they believed. During that time, like other Asian countries, Japan was also forced to sign unfair as well as unequal treaties with many western nations. In this way, the western nations were given strong legal and political power within Japan. In order to regain Japan’s independence and set its place as a respected nation in the world, one of the top priorities of the Emperor Meiji’s clustered government was to regain its independence and sovereignty through various reforms, which also included economic reform. For the governor of Japan during the Meiji period, the Meiji restoration was to achieve a centralized government, strong military influence, factories to produce necessary daily needs and a stable banking and currency system (Tang, 2011).
Meiji period serves as such an important transformation period for Japan’s economy reformation, and I was particularly fascinated with the changes during this time period. In this way, this paper aims to explore the causes and consequences of the modern economic growth of Japan during the Meiji period. The economic theories used in paper include the Solow-Swan model, analysis of the capitalistic economy, agricultural economy and etc. The Solow-Swan model is a classical economic model to assess the long-run economic growth within a certain period of time using the neoclassical economy framework (Cai, Ye & Gu, 2014). This model will analyze many factors including the capital accumulation, population growth, labor productivity and technological advancement, in order to explain the long-term economic growth during the Meiji period in Japan.
文献评论：
有很多与该主题紧密相关的同行评审论文，讨论了日本明治时期经济发展的原因。其中的一篇论文被约翰·唐（John Tang）称为“铁路扩张与企业家精神：来自明治日本的证据”（Tang，2014年）。在这项研究中，进行了研究以探讨铁路对日本明治时期企业活动的影响。在日本明治时期，越来越多的要素流动性，劳动力和金融资本主要归功于铁路建设，这些都是当时经济发展的因素。另一方面，企业活动是明治时期经济增长的另一个重要原因。在本文中，作者评估了铁路建设前后的启动活动，然后使用新开发的公司级数据库和差异模型分析了铁路扩张对整个日本这些活动的影响。差异模型中的差异是一种经典的统计分析方法，通常用于定量研究中，旨在通过研究治疗组和对照组之间的差异来基于观察数据来设计研究。研究结果表明，铁路扩张与公司活动的增加之间存在很强的相关性，这反过来又支持了铁路扩张是明治时期日本经济增长的原因之一的观点（Tang。2014）。
与该主题相关的另一篇论文也称为John Fang（Fangoku Kyohei：评估公共投资对日本明治的影响）（Tang，2011年）。作者很想知道与私人投资者相比，公共资助行业的贡献是否有所不同。为了对此进行检验，作者关注了三个主要因素，即相对因素强度，启动期间企业活动的进入率和分布。选择这些因素是因为它们与明治时期日本政府的目标紧密相关，这将使它们能够反映公共投资效率的水平。作者利用差异模型中的差异来分析公共投资行业与私人投资行业在投资前后的创业活动。结果表明，在具有公共投资的行业中，新兴企业的活跃度更高，但是这种差距很快就开始缩小。总而言之，明治维新基本完成了其所有目标，包括实现更好的经济运行市场。现在来看，无论是政府的公共投资还是鼓励私人投资，都是当时的振兴经济的重大举措（Tang，2011）。
与此主题相关的另一篇有趣的论文称为“农业发展与经济转型：日本经验的比较研究”（布鲁斯·约翰斯顿，Johnston，1960年）。本文着重探讨了明治时期日本国内农业的发展及其对日本经济的影响。在1868年至1893年间，农业的生产力和效率达到了顶峰，约占日本食品总消费量的80％。同时，由于单产增加，六种主要农作物的产量在此期间几乎翻了一番，导致增产166％，仅增加了18％的土地。作者认为，农业生产力的提高是由于肥料使用量的增加和各种农作物种子的使用的增加。此外，这也是人们开始更加关注先进技术并探索创新如何帮助提高农业生产率的时候。农业计划教育开始兴起，对农业研究的战略措施和管理上的压力鼓励了先进技术和创新的广泛使用。根据安东尼·唐（Anthony Tang）的说法，在1880年至1938年之间，农场的净产量增加了150％，而投入仅增加了15％。总之，在1883年至1887年之间，超过75％的劳动力被雇用，农业领域生产力的提高在日本经济的发展中起着至关重要的作用（Johnston，1960年）。
Literature Review:另一篇对此主题提供深刻见解的文章称为“日本明治的农业产量和粮食供应增长：经济奇迹还是统计伪影？” Jean-Pascal Bassino撰写（Bassino，2006年）。大多数人认为，农业增长是明治时期日本经济发展的主要动力之一。但是，在本文中，作者通过说这种观点是统计伪像来挑战这种观点。作者通过提供统计证据来支持其观点，该统计证据表明1874年至1972年之间的粮食供应数据仅增长了1％，而人均粮食消费增长了1.1％。这样，由于日本人民生活水平的显着提高，对农业效率作用的分析就出现了偏差。最后，作者得出结论，农业生产力的影响不是经济奇迹，而是统计假象（Bassino，2006）。
至于明治时代以后经济增长的后果，日本实际上在1854年后经历了两倍的主要经济增长，当时德川幕府决定开放国家并将其暴露于西方文化。这标志着日本西化的开始，成为第二次中日战争前后日本经济增长的转折点。明治政府带来的最重要后果之一就是封建制度的终结。在明治时期，随着封建制度的结束，该国的社会结构相对松散，人们得以努力工作以谋求更好的生活。许多人决定建立自己的商人并出售。棉和丝绸等纺织品是您在日本人家庭中看到的两个最受欢迎的工作室。到1890年，纺织品生产业务已在市场上占据主导地位，日本纺织品成为世界上最大的出口国。随着人们有成功的工作谋生，人们就有更多的精力和额外的时间投入到教育中。明治政府派出数百万学生到西方世界学习，当地人口也越来越受教育。随着受过良好教育的人口的增加，它也为明治时期的日本工业化进程带来了巨大的好处（Bassino，Broadberry，Fukao，Grupta和Takashima，2017年）。
这四篇论文阐明了有关明治时期日本当地经济增长的原因和后果的话题。第一篇文章证实，铁路建设及其扩张是经济发展的主要原因之一，因为它有助于增加企业活动，而较高的企业活动表明经济正在增长。第二篇文章展示了公共投资和私人投资对经济内部变化的影响，结果表明，即使有细微差别，这两种投资都对创业活动产生了积极影响，进而导致了经济增长。第三篇论文解释了农业领域的变化及其对国内经济的影响。相反，第四篇论文提出了完全相反的观点，即农业生产力不是促进经济增长的原因。包含本文是很重要的，因为它为我提供了另一种观点，并且排除了任何可能的偏差（如果我仅包含符合本文稍后的假设的文章）。最后，第五篇文章探讨了经济增长的原因，讨论了明治时代后日本遭受的后果。由于封建制度的结束，随着教育水平的提高，社会结构更加灵活，导致了工业化社会的发展。工业化改变了日本的当地经济，并使其成为世界上主要的纺织品出口国。
There are many peer-reviewed papers that are closely related to this topic to discuss the causes of the economic development within the Meiji period in Japan. One of these papers is called “Railroad expansion and entrepreneurship: evidence from Meiji Japan” by John Tang (Tang, 2014). In this study, research was conducted to explore the railroads’ impact on firm activity during the Meiji period in Japan. The increasing factor mobility, labor and financial capital were largely credited to the construction of railroads during the Meiji period in Japan, which are all contributing factors to the economic development during that time. On the other side, firm activity is another important cause for the economy growth during the Meiji period. In this paper, the author assessed the start-up activities before and after the construction of railroads, then analyzed the impact of the railroad expansion on those activities all across Japan using a newly developed firm-level database and a difference in difference model. The difference in difference model is a classical statistical analysis that are normally used in quantitative research that aims to design a research based on observational data by studying the difference between a treatment group and a control group. Research result suggested that there is a strong correlation between the railroad expansion and increased firm activity, which in turn supports the idea that railroads expansion serves as one of the reasons for Japan’s economic growth during the Meiji period (Tang. 2014).
Another paper that is related to this topic is called “Fukoku Kyohei: Evaluating the impact of public investment in Meiji Japan” by John Tang as well (Tang, 2011). The author was interested in finding out whether there is a difference of contribution that came from public-funded industries compared to private investors. In order to test this, the author paid attention to three main factors, relative factor intensity, rates of entry and distribution of firm activity during the start-up period. These factors were chosen due to the fact that they are closely related to the goals of the Japanese government during the Meiji period, which would allow them to reflect the level of public investment efficiency. The author employed the difference in difference model to analyze the start-up activity between industry with public investment and industry with private investment before and after the investment. The result showed that there was a higher start-up activity in industries with public investment, however, this gap started to diminish soon after time. In conclusion, the Meiji restoration basically completed all its goals including achievement of a better economically functioning market. Now looking at it, both the public investment from the government and its encouragement of private investment were great moves at that time, to revive the economy (Tang, 2011).
Another interesting paper that is related to this topic is called “Agricultural development and economic transformation: a comparative study of the Japanese experience” by Bruce F. Johnston (Johnston, 1960). This paper focused on exploring the development of agriculture within Japan during the Meiji period and its impact on the Japanese economy during that time. In between 1868 to 1893, the productivity and efficiency of agriculture reached its peak and accounted for almost 80 percent of the total food consumption within Japan. At the same time, the production of six main crops almost doubled during this time period due to increased yield, resulting in 166 percent of growth with only 18 percent of additional land. The author believes that the rise of agricultural productivity was due to increased used of fertilizers and use of a variety of crop seeds. Moreover, this is also the time where people started to give more attention on advanced technologies and explored how innovation could help increase agricultural productivity. Education on agriculture programs started to emerge and the stress put on strategic measures and management toward agricultural research encouraged widespread use of advanced technology and innovation. According to Anthony Tang, between 1880 and 1938, the net farm output increased by 150 percent based on only 15 percent more on input. In conclusion, rising productivity in the agricultural field played a vital role in the development of Japan’s economy, as more than 75 percent of the labor force were employed between 1883 to 1887 (Johnston, 1960).
Another article that provides insightful thoughts on this topic is called “The growth of agricultural output and food supply in Meiji Japan: Economic miracle or statistical artifact?” by Jean-Pascal Bassino (Bassino, 2006). The majority of people believes that growth of agriculture serves as one of the main drives to the development of the Japanese economy during Meiji time. However, in this article, the author challenged this view by saying that this view is a statistical artifact. The author backed up its view by presenting statistical evidence indicating that the food supply data only improved by 1 percent between 1874 and 1972, while the per capita food consumption grew by 1.1 percent. In this way, the analysis of the role of agriculture efficiency were biased due to this outstanding improvement within Japanese people’s living condition. At the end, the author concluded that the impact of agriculture productivity is not an economic miracle, but instead a statistical artifact (Bassino, 2006).
As for the consequences of the economic growths after the Meiji period, Japan actually experienced two times of major economic growth after 1854, when the Tokugawa Shogunate decided to open up the country and expose it to western culture. This marked the beginning of Japan’s westernization and became the changing point for its economic growth before and after the Second Sino-Japanese war. One of the most important consequences that the Meiji government brought was the end of the feudal system. During the Meiji period, with the end of the feudal system, the social structure in the country was relatively loose, so people were able to work hard to earn better lives. Many people decided to make their own merchants and sell them. Textiles, such as cotton and silk were two of the most popular workshops you see within Japanese people’s family. By 1890, the textile production business achieved a dominant place in the market and the Japanese textile products became the top exporter in the world. As people have successful jobs to earn a living, people have more energy and extra time to devote to education. The Meiji government sent millions of students to the western worlds to study and the local population became more and more educated. With the larger population of educated folks, it also brought tremendous benefits to the process of industrialization in Japan during the Meiji period (Bassino, Broadberry, Fukao, Grupta & Takashima, 2017).
These four papers shed light on the topic about the causes and consequences of the Japanese local economic growth during the Meiji period. The first article confirmed that the construction of railroads and its expansion as one of the main causes for the development of economy, since it helped increase firm activity, and higher firm activities suggests growing economy. The second article demonstrated the impact of public investment and private investment on the changes within economy, and it turned out that even with slightly difference, both investments imposed a positive influence on start-up activity, which in turn resulted in economy growth. The third paper explained the changes within the agricultural field and how it has impacted the domestic economy. On the contrary, the fourth paper brought up a completely opposite view saying that the agricultural productivity was not a cause towards economic growths. This paper is important to be included as it provided me with an alternative view and rule out any possible bias if I had only included articles that would conform to my hypothesis later in this paper. Lastly, going off the causes of the economy growth, the fifth article discussed the consequences Japan experienced after the Meiji period. Due to the end of the feudal system, there were a more flexible society structure with increased level of education, which led to a more industrialized society. The industrialization changed Japan’s local economy and turned it into the main textile exporter in the world.
Data Section:
The data selected to answer the question is historical data. In order to test whether land productivity serves as one of the factors that has contributed to Japan’s economic growth during the Meiji period, it is important to find out whether there is a positive correlation between them. The data used in this paper are mainly derived from “Japan and the Great Divergence 730 – 1874” (Bassino, Broadberry, Fukao, Grupta & Takashima, 2017). Japan’s land productivity as well as GDP per capital are collected from year 730 to 1874. The main dependent variable is the GDP per capital, which shows the level of economic growth between years. On the other side, the main control variable is the level of land productivity. The GDP per capital normally rises with the increase of land productivity, which will help to explain the question on whether increasing productivity of land cast a positive influence on economy growth.
In this study, level of GDP per capital and level of land productivity across 2,000 years from year 730 to year 1847 were gathered, with 200 years in between each data point. The dependent variable of GDP per capita shows that there is an increasing trend of GDP per capital throughout the years where these data were collected from, which suggested that Japan’s economy has been increasing over this period of time. The standard deviation of GDP per capital is 46,264, which is extremely high and suggests that the data included in this study is not centered around the mean, but much more spread out. It is reasonable since the GDP per capital shows a continuous increasing trend, so the standard deviation will not be centered around the mean in this case. In addition, the lowest GDP per capital in the study is 8,695 in year 730, while the highest GDP per capital is 129, 541 in year 1847, right in the middle of the Meiji period. On the other side, the control variable of land productivity shows a mean of 8.852. The standard deviation of the level of land productivity is at 3.568, which also indicates that the data collected in the study are more spread out instead of centering around the mean. This is also shown in the summary output. Between 1450 to 1600, there is an obvious gap of land productivity rising from 8.6 to 10.36. Moreover, the lowest level of land productivity is 5.02 compared to the highest level at 14.12.
Overall, there seems to be a positive correlation between the level of land productivity and GDP per capita, since both of them shows a similarly increasing trend, and the GDP per capital increases the most in the same period when the level of productivity increases the most.
Empirical Methodology:
The regression equation is as follows:
GDP per capital = Β0 + Β1 (level of land productivity)
The dependent variable in this study is the GDP per capital, which will be analyzed to see how it reacts with the changes in level of land productivity. The primary hypothesis is that the level of land productivity has a positive influence over GDP per capital, and a higher GDP per capita indicates better economy. Through background research and reading many analytical papers on this issue, it does seem that level of land productivity is one of the drivers behind the result of Japan’s economy growth during the Meiji period, along with many other factors. However, in this paper, due to the limitation on data collection and analytical tools, only the relationship between level of land productivity and economy growth will be tested. Later in this paper, a regression will be run with excel to explore whether the result conforms with this hypothesis.
Results:
A regression has been run on excel and the result is shown above in the summary output. The control variable has a coefficient of 12,295, which means that the GDP per capita will increase by 12,295 thousand kokus when the level of land productivity increase by 1 koku. Moreover, 2.90984E-05 represents the p-value of this variable with 95 percent confidence level and 0.05 alpha. The 2.90984E-05 here is a very small number compared to the alpha as 0.05, which indicates that there is a strong positive relationship between the dependent variable and the control variable. In addition, the R-square of the analysis is at 0.8994, which indicates that 89.94 percent of the variance of the dependent variable as the GDP per capita can be explained by the variance of the control variable as the level of land productivity. This is a comparatively positive result, as the high R-square demonstrates the accuracy and accountability of the data. In conclusion, the overall regression result reveals a strongly correlated relationship between GDP per capita and the level of land productivity. In this way, it supports the original hypothesis that level of land productivity has a positive impact on GDP per capita, and in return it proves that the level of land productivity indeed serves as a contributor to the development of economy in Japan between 730 to 1874.
Conclusion:
This paper was carefully researched and studied to answer the question about the causes and consequences of the economy growth in Japan during the Meiji period. I was interested in this topic because I had been to Japan many times and loved the culture. I was also fascinated with the history of Meiji Restoration. Therefore, it was interesting for me to study and discuss this part of the history from an economic perspective. The answer to the question that this paper intends to answer is concluded as that there are many causes to the modern economic growth of Japan during the Meiji era. From my point of view, the three main factors that have made indispensable contribution to the economic development during the Meiji era are expansion of railroads construction, public and private investment and increase of agriculture productivity. And the consequences of the economic growths include a better structured society system, industrialization and increased public education level.
In this paper, five peer-reviewed academic papers were also included, which helped me to pick my dependent and control variable for the regression analysis. One of the factors, the level of productivity of land, was tested to explore its relationship with GDP per capita. It was selected due to its accessibility of data. Higher productivity of land represents the higher agriculture productivity, while higher GDP per capita indicates economic growth. In this way, the regression showed a strong correlation between agriculture productivity and economic growth, which conformed to the author’s conclusion.
Overall, the research result was positive and conformed to my original hypothesis. However, there are still a few shortcomings that could be improved in future research and study. Firstly, I would include more comprehensive and detailed data for future research. In this paper, even though data over 2,000 years were collected, each data point was 200 years apart. I was originally hoping to look for data on GDP per capital and level of land productivity within the Meiji period specifically but failed to find those annual numbers. That is why I decided to run the regression over 2,000 years and look at the long-term correlation as an indicator for the Meiji period. This gapped dataset may have biased the study in a certain way. Secondly, based on the literature review, there are many more factors other than the level of land productivity, that may have impacted the economy during the Meiji time in Japan. However, due the limitation of data collected, this paper was only able to run regression with one of the factors. Because of the limited control variables, this study could be biased as well. Thirdly, I would include more controversial views to challenge each other. Even though I have included one paper on the opposite viewpoint, it did not challenge every cause. Looking at different viewpoints helps an author to stay unbiased and be more critical in their analysis.
References:
Bassino, Jean-Pascal, 2006. "The Growth of Agricultural Output and Food Supply in Meiji
Japan: Economic Miracle or Statistical Artifact?," Economic Development and Cultural Change, University of Chicago Press, vol. 54(2), pages 503-520, January.
Cai, D., Ye, H., & Gu, L. (2014, April 2). A Generalized Solow-Swan Model. Retrieved March
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