著者

牧野 文夫

出版者

法政大学経済学部学会

雑誌

経済志林 = The Hosei University Economic Review (ISSN:00229741)

巻号頁・発行日

vol.86, no.3・4, pp.231-275, 2019-03-20

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The subject of this paper is to examine the distribution of land ownership in Tokyo City. For this purpose, a database of taxable landowners is made, using land registry data compiled in the late 1910s and early 1930s. Before the Meiji restoration, land ownership was distributed highly unequally in Tokyo because approximately 70% of Edo territory was owned by Daimyos (clan lords). A large part of the total land in Tokyo City was owned by ex-Daimyos and wealthy businessmen such as the Marquis Maeda, the Iwasaki family (the owner of the Mitsubishi financial and industrial conglomerate) or the Mitsui family, even in the late Meiji period. Large land ownership shifted from personal owners to corporate owners with the territorial expansion of Tokyo City. The financial crisis of the late 1920s (Showa Kyoko) also facilitated the shift from personal to corporate ownership due to the decline of the Kazoku (peerage). It should be emphasized that wealthy businessmen transferred their personal financial assets or real estate to the Hozenkaisha (asset preservation companies) that were developed in the mid-1910s. Estimates of the Gini coefficient of land assets owned by households proved that the highly unequal distribution of land remained unchanged in Tokyo City during the late 1910s and early 1930s.