Consumption smoothing in the working-class households of interwar Japan

• Tác giả: Kota Ogasawara
• Ngôn ngữ: eng
• Ký hiệu phân loại: 709.045 Historical, geographic, persons treatment of fine and decorative arts
• Thông tin xuất bản: 2018
• Bộ sưu tập: Metadata
• ID: 162068

Tóm tắt

I analyze factory worker households in the early 1920s in Osaka to examine idiosyncratic income shocks and consumption. Using the household-level monthly panel dataset, I find that while households could not fully cope with idiosyncratic income shocks at that time, they mitigated fluctuations in indispensable consumption during economic hardship. In terms of risk-coping mechanisms, I find suggestive evidence that savings institutions helped mitigate vulnerabilities and that both using borrowing institutions and adjusting labor supply served as risk-coping strategies among households with less savings.