Osaka Workshop on Economics of Institutions and Organization (#169)

 We examine how the Meiji Restoration, a major regime change, shaped urban growth in Japan. We focus on two channels: administrative centralization and a shift in the geographic distribution of political elites—from samurai to high-asset taxpayers. Using digitized maps from the 1900s and 1930s, we show that cities designated as new local capitals expanded in area, but distance to these capitals had no effect on the growth of other cities. Public goods were also distributed evenly across space, reflecting the spatial distribution of the high-asset taxpayers. Non-castle towns, deprioritized under the old regime due to having fewer samurai, grew more after the change. Administrative and political transitions jointly shaped the economic geography of the non-agricultural sector.Abstract： Junichi Yamasaki