@@This paper explores the mechanisms by which the industrial organization of the
Japanese cotton spinning industry changed over time, focusing on the rise and fall of
the firms that integrated spinning and weaving processes. The basic idea is to
decompose the change in the proportion of integrated firms into factors representing
"selection" and "imitation" in an evolutionary sense. It was found that the factor which
made the largest contribution differed between the growing phase and the declining
phase of integrated firms. In the growing phase, imitation, namely the change in the
attribute of the incumbent firms, was the major factor in the proportion change. On the
other hand, in the declining phase, selection, in particular, birth rate, was the major
factor, not only in the case where the proportion is measured in terms of firm number
but also in terms of production.
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