LONG-TERM CHANGES OF CONSUMPTION EXPENDITURES IN JAPAN, 1874–1940

In this paper we attempted to explore the long-term changes of the level and structure of personal consulnption expenditures in pre-war Japan, based upon our new estimates of them using the commodity flow and retail valuation methods. Ou, r estimates have not only been checked by the oflicial national income estimates, but also by family budget surveys on farm and workers' households. We believe that these checks will fortify the reliability of our estimates, and that they will provide us with a critical evaluation of the existing official estimates of consumption, thereby Inaking clear the weakness of these otficial estimates.     

RECENT AGRARIAN PROBLEMS IN JAPAN

The present agrarian structure of Japan is characterized by the smallscale farming of individual owner cultivators and concentrated in rice cultivation. This structure has been in harmony with post-war economic development. However, the rapid economic growth since 1955 has brought about gaps between the agricultural and non-agricultural sectors in terms of productivity and real income. Therefore, the Agricultural Basic Law was enacted in 1961, and the government has undertaken the selective expansion of agricultural production and the improvement of the agrarian structure. But these measures do not seem to have succeeded in eliminating the gaps. In order to accomplish this, more daring measures are needed, in particular, for enlarging the scale of farming.     

THE INCOME DISTRIBUTION IN JAPAN

In this paper the author has atempted to clarify the characteristic of the chanes in he income distribution in post-war Japan, in particular from he viewpoint of income equalization. The problem of equaliation in income distribution is the most important one for every welfare state, and in the case of Japan, there is a willingnes to create a welfare state, whether the trend of income distribution trends towards equalizations or not is attracting increasing atention among he authorities and among persons having an interest in Japanee affaris. The results of the author's analyses show an equalization trend up to 1949; an unequalization trend after 950; and again an equalization trend from around 1965.     

ACTIVE AGRICULTURAL POPULATION IN POSTWAR JAPAN

It is the postwar period that the active agricultural population in Japan has for the first time shown a decline in numbers. This article is based on a statistical examination of the fact that the decline was due to the decrease of young recruits to agriculture rather than to an outflow of population from agriculture. From this the author points out (1) the fact that there exist conditions which will accelerate the tendency toward decrease in the agricultural population, and (2) the changes that have been occurring in the role and characteristics of the agricultural population as a source of labor supply. Serious attention is also paid to the influence of this decrease upon wage costs of industrial enterprises, chief point of which is the shift in the relative weight of the labor force supplied from rural areas, from single persons to persons tied to family and land.     

请菊入席 美食里的菊花

<正>还得说那句老话,"民以食为天",中国的很多文化传统,往根里一刨,都会落实在一个"吃"字上,至于被升华到精神层面,则是后来的事。就像流行歌曲里的"稻浪""麦浪"之所以给人小清新之感,实际上是人们看到它们,就知道不会饿肚子了,于是因免于饿肚子之忧而自然生发出原始的喜悦。