Vol. 73, No.6
Takenori INOKI
Modern economic growth and human resource development: recent findings from labour economics and theory of economic development

This article examines the current state of knowledge in the fields of labour economics and theory of economic development concerning the relationship between human resource development (or education and training) and labour productivity. The main conclusions are as follows: (1) When examining the effects of education, precise kinds of industries and occupations should to be specified, and formal levels of education (primary, secondary, and higher) should be considered separately. In the realm of informal education (including, importantly, on-the-job training), the ways of career formation and skill formation are like two sides of the same coin, and both workplace skills that cannot be put in manuals and capability to deal with non-routine jobs have a large impact on productivity. (2) Human capital theory and screening hypotheses are complementary. However, econometric analysis of data on identical twins supports the causal relationships that have been asserted by human capital theory. (3) Preschool education determines future skill formation to a great extent. (4) Formal secondary and higher education do not have a significant effect on the early industrial growth of developing nations. (5) When advanced technology is introduced in a widespread and systematic fashion, formal secondary education does become important, as was the case in Japan’s high-growth period. School education becomes important at the advanced stage of development when a full-scale technological revolution and competition in marketing are taking place.

Masami KITA
Conference report on socio-economic development and diaspora studies, with reference to the diffusion of information, knowledge, technology, and labour

This report is an outline of the theme topic of the 2007 Conference. The concept of diaspora has traditionally been applied to the history of people physically expelled from their homeland, such as the Jews and Armenians. However, pioneering works by R. COHEN, Global Diasporas, and P. D. CURTIN, Cross-Cultural Trade in World History, have encouraged studies employing a broader interpretation of the concept. Most recently, the collective work of scholarship Diaspora Entrepreneurial Network: Four Centuries of History (2004) demonstrated a range of socio-economic contexts in which the international movement of people and communities can be analyzed in diasporic terms. Recognizing the global significance of the theme, the annual conference addressed ways in which further research on diaspora topics might be pursued. Y. SHIBA of Toyo Bunko re-evaluated the significance of Chinese emigration in earlier centuries, F. MUNRO of Glasgow University looked at the spread of Scottish merchants in 19th-century Asia, S. MAHIWO of the University of the Philippines examined contemporary Filipino migration, and W. MUKESH of Delhi University considered the history of Indian immigration to Japan.

Osamu SAITO
Infant mortality and Aiiku village schemes in prewar Japan

In interwar rural Japan, infant mortality was on the decrease despite widening urban-rural gaps and sluggish government investment in public health. In his contribution to this journal (vol.63, no.6, 1998), Shigeru ITO argued, based on an analysis of prefectural statistics before 1930, that the increased supply of rural midwives accounted for the decline in infant mortality. This paper explores the situation after 1930, when the increase in the number of midwives failed to accelerate and improvement in the stillbirth rate decelerated, while post-neonatal mortality fell substantially. It focuses on village-level projects by the Aiiku Foundation, which helped organise a system of home visits by health workers and other reproductive health schemes in selected villages throughout the 1930s and the early 1940s. The results suggest that by mobilising village women, the schemes contributed to the decline in post-neonatal as well as neonatal mortality in much the same manner as midwives did. However, even these projects failed to reduce the stillbirth rate successfully, suggesting that without a substantial reduction in the workload of farm women it was difficult to achieve a dramatic improvement in their perinatal health in the prewar rural context.

Chitose SATO
The Wisconsin Unemployment Compensation Act of 1932 and the New Deal: the ‘Wisconsin idea’ and the politics of Governor Philip La Follette

This article revisits the historical development of the Wisconsin Unemployment Compensation Act of 1932, which produced the first unemployment insurance system at the state level in the United States. The Wisconsin Act has been highly acclaimed for its pioneering role in the establishment of federal unemployment insurance under the Social Security Act of 1935. However, a closer look at its legislative processes reveals some significant limitations that allowed employers to exercise wide discretion in setting up their own reserve fund for unemployment compensation. In order to explain these limitations, this article examines several important factors that shaped the system. These include the ideological background of the legislation, in particular the so-called Wisconsin idea that was advocated by some influential economists at the University of Wisconsin at Madison; the reaction of the business world, which was strongly opposed to the compulsory unemployment compensation; the state politics of Governor Philip La Follette who sought to mitigate the hardships caused by the Great Depression; and the debate and voting patterns of progressive and stalwart Republicans in the state legislature.