On the Role of Policy Interventions in Structural Change and Economic Development: The Case of Postwar Japan

Julen Esteban-Pretel and Yasuyuki Sawada

Discussion papers from Research Institute of Economy, Trade and Industry (RIETI)

Abstract: In this paper, we study the structural change occurring in Japan's post-World War II era of rapid economic growth. We use a two-sector neoclassical growth model with government policies to analyze the evolution of the Japanese economy in this period and to assess the role of such policies. Our model is able to replicate the empirical behavior of the main macroeconomic variables. Three findings emerge from our policy analysis. First, neither price and investment subsidies to the agricultural sector, nor industrial policy play a crucial role in the rapid postwar growth. Second, while a government subsidy for families in urban areas could have facilitated migration from the agricultural to the non-agricultural sector, such a policy would not have improved the overall performance of the Japanese economy. Finally, had there existed a labor migration barrier, the negative long-run level effect on output would have been substantial.

Pages: 28 pages
Date: 2009-01
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-agr, nep-dev, nep-fdg, nep-his and nep-mac
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (6)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.rieti.go.jp/jp/publications/dp/09e001.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: On the role of policy interventions in structural change and economic development: The case of postwar Japan (2014)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eti:dpaper:09001

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Discussion papers from Research Institute of Economy, Trade and Industry (RIETI) Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by TANIMOTO, Toko ().