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- Title
近代日本の庶民金融――東京市芝区T 質店の研究—―.
- Authors
Ioku Shigehiko; Shizume Masato
- Abstract
In the field of modern Japanese financial history there are few publications on the organs of finance for everyday people, such as pawnbrokers, although there are many works on the activities of the Bank of Japan, city banks, and regional banks. Previous studies on pawnbrokers focus mainly on those located in the countryside or downtown (shitamachi) Tokyo. Most of the authors argue that the pawnbrokers charged exorbitantly high interest rates to poor people who were in straitened circumstances. To explore the reality of pawnbrokers' activities, we conducted a statistical analysis of pawnbrokers in the city of Tokyo, and a case study of a pawnbroker (Shop “T”) in Shiba ward in the under-explored, near-central part of Tokyo. In our study, we used the pawn books and customers lists of 1915, 1925 and 1935. Our analysis reveals that the pawning reflected local people's lifestyle, and its change over time as their ways of living became more Westernized and they had more leisure time. Contrary to what previous works have argued, we find that pawnbrokers played an indispensable role in the daily lives of ordinary consumers by providing them with ready liquidity in small amounts in the short term by using real material objects for security.
- Subjects
TOKYO (Japan); JAPAN; PAWNBROKERS; PAWNBROKING; ECONOMIC conditions in Japan; LIQUIDITY (Economics); FINANCE
- Publication
Socio-Economic History / Shakai-Keizai Shigaku, 2014, Vol 80, Issue 3, p3
- ISSN
0038-0113
- Publication type
Article