By clicking the "Accept" button or continuing to browse our site, you agree to first-party and session-only cookies being stored on your device to enhance site navigation and analyze site performance and traffic. For more information on our use of cookies, please see our Privacy Policy.
Despite well-developed economic institutions, Early Modern Japan (1600鈥�1868), had among the lowest real wages according to available estimates, around half those in pre-industrial England. However, many Japanese peasants owned land unlike their mostly landless English counterparts, due to institutional differences in land inheritance. Using a Malthusian model, I show that this greater landownership equality paradoxically led to Japan鈥檚 lower wages and GDP per capita. Evidence from Japanese village censuses supports the mechanism. If, as many historians believe, high wages in Western Europe spurred industrialization, Japan鈥檚 failure to industrialize first could have been shaped by its unusual pre-industrial equality.
