An East Asian Route of Industrialization? The Case of Japan, 1868-1937 / / Peer Vries.

• Superior document: Library of Economic History ; 17
• VerfasserIn: Vries, Peer,
• Place / Publishing House: Leiden ;, Boston : : Brill,, 2022.
• Year of Publication: 2022
• Edition: 1st ed.
• Language: English
• Series: Library of Economic History ; 17.
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (505 pages)
• Notes: The idea has become popular that industrialisation in East Asia, in particular Japan, was fundamentally differently from Western industrialization because it would have been much more labour-intensive. This book shows that this claim is unfounded.
• Bibliography: Includes bibliographical references and index.
• ISBN: 9004520171
• Hierarchical level: Monograph
• Statement of Responsibility: Peer Vries.

In this book Peer Vries is the first scholar to provide an extensive test of the claim that industrialization in East Asia, in particular in Japan between the Meiji Restoration and World War Two, would have been much more labour intensive than industrialization in the West. He does this by systematically comparing the role and importance of labour and capital in Japan and in a number of Western countries at a similar stage of their industrial development. He uses macro-economic data as well as specific observations by people at the time. It turns out that there is no reason to distinguish a specific labour-intensive Japanese route of industrialization. His comparative analysis provides us with a better understanding of the logic of industrialization in both West and East.