Page 211 - Changing Living Spaces

Wet-Rice Agriculture and Economic Growth in Pre-Industrial Japan

Table 10 Japanese Historical GDP Estimates by Main Sector, 730–1874 (in koku)
Primary sector Secondary sector Tertiary sector Total
730 7,267 466 689 8,422
950 10,108 613 943 11,664
1150 10,919 690 1,017 12,626
1280 9,813 666 1,091 11,571
1450 16,523 1,374 2,209 20,106
1600 30,678 3,652 7,306 41,635
1721 48,808 8,434 20,361 77,603
1804 58,803 10,091 24,402 93,296
1846 67,062 11,698 28,140 106,900
1874 76,351 15,782 36,043 128,176
Sources and notes Takashima (2017) and Bassino et al. (2019). The primary sector
includes agriculture, forestry, and fishery industries. The secondary sector includes the
mining and manufacturing industries. The tertiary sector includes the commercial and
service industries.

This result also emerges from the production estimates, including
non-agricultural production. Table 10 shows the long-term estimates
of total output by sector from the ancient period to the early Meiji peri-
od. This estimate of sectoral output shows that production in all sectors
(which stagnated during the mediaeval period) increased over period. In
particular, from the latter half of the early modern period to the begin-
ning of the Meiji period (1846 to 1874), the growth rate was extremely
high. Interestingly, the proportion of the primary sector, which accounts
for the largest proportion of total output, gradually decreased, while the
proportion of the secondary and tertiary sectors increased. This trend
was particularly notable in the transition period from the early modern
period to the Meiji period.
Surprisingly, the share of the tertiary sector seemed to be higher than
that of the secondary sector after the sixteenth century, as shown by the
latest estimates of the Japanese historical national accounts (Bassino et
al. 2019). This trend became even more pronounced after the eighteenth
century. This indicates that proto-industrialisation led to a social transi-
tion that included not only industrialisation but also the development of
the trade and service sectors.
But what if we look at this in terms of cultivated land and not in terms
of an increase in production? What would happen if we plot the chang-
es in cultivated land, as shown in tables 5 through 7? Figure 3 compares
changes in the cultivated areas and agricultural production in the latter
half of the early modern period. The rate of increase in agricultural pro-

209