Discussion Papers 2016

CIRJE-F-1011

"Income Distribution in Prewar Japan"

Author Name

Okazaki, Tetsuji

Date

April 2016

Full Paper

PDF File

Remarks

Revised in April 2016; subsequetnly published in Pat Hudson and Keith Tribe eds. The Contradictions of Capital in the Twenty-First Century, London: Agenda, 2016, pp.223-236.

Abstract

This chapter surveyed the literature on income distribution, focusing on the research on the prewar period. From the literature, it has been established that the prewar Japanese society exhibited high income inequality and that the inequality increased over time. This evidence is consistent with the findings on the functional distribution of income, which indicated that the capital share was increasing in Japan in this period. In addition, this chapter expanded on the existing research by using a new individual-level data set to explore the relationship between assets and income. It was found that a substantial part of the income of the core top income earners was from their assets.

Keywords: Income distribution, Inequality, Distribution of assets, Economic history, Japan