THE RISE AND FALL OF INDUSTRIALIZATION: THE CASE OF A SILK WEAVING DISTRICT IN MODERN JAPAN

The production of habutae, a simple silk fabric, expanded rapidly between 1890 and 1918 in Japan's Fukui Prefecture, with large exports to Europe and the United States. The production of habutae, initially woven by hand, was labour intensive, but it gradually became capital-intensive after the introduction of power looms. Production and export of this fabric declined precipitously from 1918. In this paper, we attribute the rise and then fall of Japan's production and export of habutae to its changing comparative advantage, which is associated with shifts from labour-using to capital-using production technology initiated in the United States.     

INFORMALIZATION OF INDUSTRIAL LABOR IN INDIA: EFFECTS OF LABOR MARKET RIGIDITIES AND IMPORT COMPETITION

Since the 1980s, industrial labor in India has been increasingly informalized, manifested in a rising share of unorganized sector employment and the growing use of temporary and contract workers, and subcontracting in organized manufacturing. Using unit‐level data from the National Sample Survey employment–unemployment survey for 2004–5, the paper investigates econometrically whether labor market rigidities and import competition have been responsible for the informalization of industrial labor in India. The results of econometric models show that labor market reforms tend to increase the creation of regular jobs, while import competition tends to raise casual employment among workers with education levels above primary.