著者

牧野 文夫

出版者

社会経済史学会

雑誌

社會經濟史學 (ISSN:00380113)

巻号頁・発行日

vol.49, no.6, pp.585-607, 705-704, 1984-03-29

---

The diffusion of new technology seems to be one of the most important elements of technological progress, which has played a significant role in the process of Japanese economic development. To examine the rapid growth of the Japanese economy, therefore, it is indispensable to explore conditions for technological diffusion. It has not been necessarily clear, however, how the new technology replaces the old one. To examine this problem, we study the conditions for diffusion of power looms in the Japanese weaving industry, one of the leading industries during the prewar period. In the first section, it is hypothesized that the entrepreneurs choose the technology which has the highest profitability among the alternatives, with the result that a certain technology will come into widespread use. In order to test this hypothesis, the rate of net profit among five types of loom technology are estimated. We then analyse the relationship between changes in relative profitability of the alternative technologies over time and their diffusion, and between the choice of loom technology and the type of business organization. The results obtained are as follows: (1) Generally speaking, at each point in time the loom that had the highest rate of net profit among the alternatives was adopted. (2) The rate of net profit on modern looms was higher in the modern business organization, whereas that on traditional looms was higher in the traditional business organization. In the second section, we test three basic hypotheses that attempt to explain the regional difference in the rate and timing of diffusion of power looms, namely (1) the diffusion of factory system as a modern business organization, (2) the technological adaptation of power looms dictated by the product mix, (3) the availability of electricity as cheap motive energy. It is found that the diffusion of factory system is the most important among three factors. It accounts for a large portion of an increase in the diffusion of power looms over time and its regional differences. The increasing availability of electric power explains mechanization significantly, especially in the earlier periods, while it does not lead to regional differences in mechanization. As for the regional differences in mechanization, a difference in the product mix makes non-negligible influences. In the third section, we examine the development and production of power looms. It is emphasized that rapid increase in power looms was attributable to inexpensive power looms which adapted to the factor endowment at that time. Most of them were produced by a lot of small and medium scale loom-makers in weaving regions. This is indeeed on of the best examples of what is now called "appropriate technology".