日 時    : 2016年07月14日(木)16:30−18:00
場 所    : 3F1115
講演者    : 山崎 潤一 氏(London School of Economics and Political Science)
演 題    : Railroad, Technology Adoption, and Population Growth: Evidence from New Data in 1881-1920 Japan

                  < Abstract >
Railroad is often considered as one of the key infrastructure to accelerate economic growth, but little is known about the causal impact of railroad on technology adaption. I estimated it using Japanese railroad network expansion in late 19th and early 20th century, by digitizing factory level data about technology adaption, measured by the introduction of steam engine by the factories. To overcome endogeneity problem, I exploited the government policy objective and geographical cost of construction, to use cost minimizing path connecting destinations as instrument, conditional on local geographies. The results indicate that railroad access increased substantial amount of technology adoption, which supports a view that railroad was the key of Japanese successful catch-up in technology. I will also discuss potential theoretical channels and also other outcomes such as population.
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日 時    : 2016年07月15日(金)10:00−11:30
場 所    : 3F1115
講演者    : 山崎 潤一 氏(London School of Economics and Political Science)
演 題    : Time Horizon of Government and Public Goods Provision

                  < Abstract >
Political economy literature recognizes that longer time horizon of government is one of the key of local public goods provision. I use a unique event in Japanese history (Edo period, 1615-1868) to test this hypothesis. In 1651, the sudden death of the third Shogun (the executive leader of Tokyo government) gave rise to a political crisis and reduced the transfer risk of local lords, especially for particular political identity, insiders. To exploit this regime change, I digitized the records of public investment in irrigation and other agricultural infrastructure and by Difference-in-Difference strategy I find that regions owned by insiders started the number of project financed by local lords more than other regions, after this regime change. To confirm that this reduced form effect is coming from longer time horizon hypothesis, I also discuss other possible policies which might explain this reduced form effect such as in-kind intergovernmental transfer or other possible effects of reduced tenure risk such as experience effect, and I find no significant results for these. Therefore, I conclude that the data supports long time horizon hypothesis.
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