Micro-Performance During Postwar Japan’s High-Growth Era

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-xii

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2. Micro-Performance During Postwar Japan’s High-Growth Era

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 1-1

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   2. The Japanese Apparel Industry and Consumer Society from 1950 to the 1970s

      • Susumu Ishii

      Pages 3-37

   3. The Legislative Process of Automobile Exhaust Emissions Control in Japan—The 1966 Regulation and the Role of the Ministry of Transport

      • Akira Itagaki

      Pages 39-68

   4. Adjustment Policies in the Japanese Coal Mining Industry During the Period of High Economic Growth – Production Volume Maintenance and Adjustments in Employment

      • Jin Sung Chung

      Pages 69-104

   5. The Relationship Between Labor Management Reform and Inter-Company Relations at the Industry Level: A Case Study of the Japanese Steel Industry

      • Hiroshi Sugiyama

      Pages 105-134

3. Book Reviews

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 135-135

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   2. Review of Tsuyoshi Numagami, Ekisyō Display no Gijyutsu Kakushin-shi (The History of Technological Innovation in Liquid Crystal Displays)

      • Juroh Hashimoto

      Pages 137-140

   3. Review of Woo Jong-Won, “Mibun no Torihiki” to Nihon no Koyō Kankō (“Transactions Over Status” and Japan’s Employment Practices)

      • Hiroshi Ichihara

      Pages 141-145

   4. Review of Junko Watanabe, Sangyō Hatten, Suitai no Keizai-shi—“10-dai bō” no Keisei to Sangyō Chousei (The Economic History of Industrial Development and Decline: The Formation and Industrial Readjustment of the Cotton Industry’s “Big 10”)

      • Kyohei Hirano

      Pages 147-151

   5. Review of Juroh Hashimoto, Sengo Nihon Keizai no Seichou Kouzou: Kigyō System to Sangyō Seisaku no Bunseki (The Structure of Postwar Japan’s Economic Growth: an Analysis of Enterprise Systems and Industrial Policy)

      • Seiichiro Yonekura

      Pages 153-156

4. Back Matter

   Pages 157-160

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The aim of this book is to analyze Japan's high-growth economy, in particular to clarify the kinds of changes in people’s lives that were generated by high growth. The present volume focuses not on the macro-economic mechanisms that expanded the scale of the economy, but on the micro-economic changes that were effected in everyday life. The emergence of a mass consumption society as a result of economic growth suggests that people's lifestyles and consumer behavior changed in various ways.

The first chapter focuses on the apparel industry's expanding market as it corresponded to changes in consumer behavior. Even as consumer life became more comfortable and abundant, consumers were becoming uneasy about the environmental deterioration associated with high growth. The second chapter examines how the Japanese government addressed emissions regulations while drawing on the lessons of America's experience with the same issue.

The change in industrial structure brought aboutby economic growth inevitably resulted in the decline of other industries. Chief among these was the coal-mining industry, which, with the onset of a full-scale energy revolution, lost its role as energy supplier owing to the import of cheap crude oil. The third chapter discusses the government's industrial policies as they addressed the coal industry's adjustment in the high-growth era, concluding that they reduced such problems as stagnation, unemployment, and local industrial decline. The adjustments in employment practices contributed positively to the gradual shift of labor from declining industries to growth industries. The fourth chapter investigates changes in labor management in the steel industry, which was one of the high-growth era's leading industries. This publication will serve as a valuable resource for those who are interested not only in the post-war history in Japan but also in high growth economies in recent East Asia.

• high-growth era
• mass consumption society
• Japanese modern history
• industrial policy in Japan
• consumer society
• labor management

• The University of Tokyo, Professor Emeritus, Tokyo, Japan

  Haruhito Takeda

Editor

Haruhito Takeda is a professor emeritus at the University of Tokyo. He obtained a Ph.D.in economics from the University of Tokyo in 1988. His main research field is the economic and business history of Japan. His publications include “Nihon Sandougyō shi” (A History of Copper Mines in Japan)(Univ. Press of Tokyo, 1987). 

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