Why did Countries Adopt the Gold Standard?
Lessons from Japan

Kris James Mitchener
Santa Clara University, UCLA and NBER
Masato Shizume
Kobe University
Marc D. Weidenmier
Claremont McKenna College and NBER
April 2008
Abstract
Why did policymakers adopt the gold standard? Although previous research has
identified ex post effects of gold standard adoption on trade and bond yields, few studies
have sought to understand whether these were the actual outcomes of interest to
policymakers at the time of adoption. We examine Japan’s adoption of the gold standard
in 1897 to understand both the ex ante motives policymakers gave for wanting to go onto
the gold standard and the ex post effects of gold standard adoption. By focusing on
multiple outcome variables that were of interest to contemporaries, we are able to shedlight on the political economy of the adoption of fixed exchange rates. In contrast to
previous studies examining bond yields, we find little evidence that joining the gold
standard reduced Japan’s country risk or that it resulted in a domestic investment boom.
On the other hand, we find that membership in the gold standard increased bilateral tradeflows. The boost in trade appears to have been largest between Japan and its trading
partners on the silver standard, suggesting that the depreciation of gold against silver
from 1897-1914 increased the competitiveness of Japanese exports.

Mitchener: Department of Economics, Santa Clara University 500 El Camino Real Santa Clara, CA 95053
USA and UCLA International Institute and Department of Economics, UCLA. Email: kmitchener@scu.edu
Shizume: Research Institute for Economics and Business Administration, Kobe University, Rokkodai 2-1,
Nada-ku, Kobe 657-8501, Japan. Email: E-mail:shizume@rieb.kobe-u.ac.jp. Weidenmier: Department of
Economics, Claremont McKenna College, 500 East Ninth Street, Claremont, CA 91711 USA. Email:mweidenmier@cmc.edu. We thank Simon Bytheway, Steve Quinn, Hisahiko Saito, and Michael Schlitz as
well as seminar participants at Rutgers University, Kobe University, and the Bank of Japan for comments
and suggestions. We thank Genna Tan, Ronald Choi, and Lydia Fung for excellent research assistance.

Why did Countries Adopt the Gold Standard?
Lessons from JapanWhy did countries join the gold standard? Recent research in economic history
has generally focused on two explanations. Bordo and Rockoff (1996) argue thatadherence to the monetary rule was “a good housekeeping seal of approval,” which
signaled to international capital markets that countries were committed to pursuing
prudent monetary and fiscal policies.1 Investors rewarded countries that joined the gold
standard by lowering their cost of capital in financial markets by approximately 30 basis
points (Obstfeld and Taylor, 2003). Another explanation for joining the gold standard
focuses on the importance of fixed exchange rates in facilitating international trade.
Flandreau and Maurel (2005) and Meissner and Lopez-Cordova (2003) provide evidence
that the gold standard increased bilateral trade flows between 50 and 100 percent during
the period 1870-1913. These studies argue that the hard peg promoted international trade
perhaps by reducing transaction costs or exchange-rate volatility.2
To date, most empirical studies have analyzed the effects of gold standard
adoption on a single outcome variable, such as trade or government borrowing costs.3
While partial equilibrium studies allow one to correlate economic outcomes with the
adoption of a hard peg, they fail to give insight into why a country chose to go on thegold standard. Ex post evidence of lower borrowing costs or increased trade suggests

1

Flandreau and Zumer (2005) and Ferguson and Schularick (2006a, 2006b) provide evidence that the gold
standard did not reduce the cost of capital during the gold standard period using a large sample of countries
along with additional control variables in their regressions.
2
The precise mechanism is not specified.
3
Meissner (2005), is an exception, in that he considers multiple factors that affected a country’s decision
about when to adopt the gold standard. However, he is primarily concerned with the process of gold
standard diffusion rather than the political economy of adoption, and does not explicitly consider why
countries adopted and how the decision to adopt then impacted economic outcomes such as borrowing cost,investment, and trade flows.

1correlation, but not motivation. To understand why countries would willingly choose totie the hands of their monetary authorities and join the gold standard, it is necessary to
examine the policy debates at the time of adoption, and then test whether adoption had
the intended effect or unintended consequences.
In this paper, we argue that examining countries on a case-by-case basis canprovide better insight into understanding why countries adopt hard pegs such as the gold
standard. By focusing on the experience of a single country, we are able to linkcontemporaneous policy arguments to multiple outcomes and avoid the post hoc ergo
propter hoc fallacy that plagues the cross-country literature. We focus on Japan’s
adoption of the gold standard in 1897 for three reasons. First, late nineteenth-century
Japan has many of the characteristics of today’s emerging market economies: it was asmall open economy with an expanding trade sector and a desire to borrow ininternational capital markets. Examining Japan’s experience may help us better
understand the decision making of countries that adopt hard pegs today. Second, Japan’s
historical archives provide detailed information on the political economy of gold standard
adoption and the role of special interest groups in the decision making process.
Furthermore, primary source materials from the nineteenth century also permit us tocollect high frequency price and yield data on domestic stocks and bonds as well as
annual data on bilateral trade flows that can be used to test the economic effects of gold
standard adoption. Third, previous researchers have argued that Japan is the canonicalcase of an emerging market borrower benefiting from lower borrowing costs after
adoption of a hard peg. For example, Sussman and Yafeh’s (2000, 2006) find thatsovereign risk fell by approximately 200 basis points when Japan joined the gold club.

2

Using a more complete database of Japanese sovereign debt and domestic debt issues, weare able to re-assess whether borrowing rates actually fell after adoption.
Our empirical analysis suggests a revised interpretation for why Japan adopted thegold standard and what effects its adoption had on the economy. Although someparticipants in the parliamentary debates suggested that Japan would benefit from lower
rates of borrowing, we find that, after Japan adopted the gold standard, its rates ofborrowing in both international and domestic capital markets did not fall. Nor do we findevidence of a domestic investment boom in the wake of gold standard adoption.
Japanese policymakers of the nineteenth century also suggested that going onto
gold would affect trade, but they were decidedly mixed as to whether it would increase itor reduce it. We find that both the opponents of adopting (who argued that Japan wasreceiving large benefits from being on silver) and proponents (who argued Japan would
benefit from lower transactions costs and exchange rate volatility) were correct.
Estimates from a gravity model of bilateral trade suggest that Japan received a large boost
in trade when Japan and its partners were on the silver standard. However, gold standard
adoption also significantly boosted trade, even after controlling for other factors. As itturns out, Japan was lucky. It went onto gold at precisely the time when the rate of silver
depreciation against gold began to significantly decline.
The next section of the paper provides a brief discussion of the events leading up
to Japan’s decision to go on the gold standard and the debates among Japanesepolicymakers over the adoption of the gold standard. Section III examines evidence frombond markets in both London and Tokyo to analyze the impact of gold-standard adoption
on sovereign yield spreads. Section IV employs a gravity model to assess the impact of3

adopting the gold standard on bilateral trade flows. Section V explores whether Japan
experienced an investment boom after gold standard adoption. Section VI discusses theimplications of our results for hard pegs and for the financial history of the Meiji period.

II. The Decision to Adopt Gold

During the Meiji period, Japan parted ways with its feudal past and began to forge
a new national identity for its economy. It turned outward in its orientation (initiallyinduced by the “gunboat diplomacy” of Western powers), developing industries andtrading companies that sold products such as silk in overseas markets and borrowinginternationally to fund internal improvements that would facilitate the movement ofgoods and people.4
At the same time Japan was forging a national economy, it was experimenting
with institutions that would foster economic growth and stability. It introduced a national
currency, the yen, in 1871. It imported the U.S. model of a national banking system in
1872, and in 1876, allowed these national banks to issue paper notes backed bygovernment bonds. These early monetary institutions resulted in unsustainably highinflation rates in the late 1870s and early 1880s, and paved the way for the Japanese
government to centralize control over the money supply. The Bank of Japan was foundedin 1882, and thereafter, it began issuing convertible notes that hastened the demise ofcommercial bank note issuance. Japan adopted the silver standard in May 1885 and had
made all yen-denominated paper money issued by the government convertible to silver
by January 1886. The country stayed on the silver standard for eleven years.
4

Its first national debt, issued in London in 1870 financed railway construction.

4

Beginning in 1893, the government began preparation to join the gold standard.
The veteran finance minister, Count Masayoshi Matsukata, initiated the program5. The
government formed the Committee on the Monetary System to explore what monetarysystem would be best for Japan’s economy in the long run. The committee was charged
with determining the global causes of gold-silver price fluctuations and theirconsequences on the Japanese economy and recommending the monetary standard thatwould be best suited for Japan. As finance minister, Kunitake Watanabe, stated in setting
up the committee, “Fluctuations in the price of gold and silver are having significant
effects on the Japanese economy and fiscal conditions. I propose to set the committee on
the monetary system…and the government will refer to it for building its strategy onmonetary matters.”
After seven general meetings and 41 task force meetings, the committee
submitted its final report to the returning and reappointed finance minister Matsukata, on
July 3, 1895. Only one of the seven task force members, the protégé of Matsukata,insisted on an immediate move to the gold standard. Of the 15 members on the maincommittee (composed of government officials, business leaders, and academics), sevenwanted to retain silver, six suggested moving to gold at some point in the future, and twodesired a bimetallic standard. Most of the supporters of gold standard adoption were
bureaucrats and politicians with close relationships to Matsukata whereas opponents werelargely business leaders and academics. Despite the tepid response by the committee,
Matsukata continued to press for monetary reform, and was emboldened to do so once
China was forced to pay a large indemnity to Japan at the conclusion of the Sino5

Matsukata played a central role in implementing the monetary and financial reforms of the Meiji era. As
an official of Ministry of Finance, he helped to engineer the fiscal stabilization program of the 1870s. As
Finance Minister, he also initiated the movement to establish the central bank, the Bank of Japan.

5Japanese War in 1895. Matsukata’s strategy was to request that China pay the indemnity
in pound-sterling in London even though the original treaty stated it would be paid insilver taels. The pound sterling would then enable Japan to acquire gold reserves so that it
could move onto the gold standard.
After two years’ preparation for introducing the gold standard, including
acquisition of gold reserves in overseas markets, in March of 1897, the ruling
government (led by Matsukata, who had been both Prime Minister and Finance Minister
since September 1896) officially submitted legislation to the Imperial Diet authorizing agold standard.
Once the bill was introduced, fierce debate erupted in the legislative branch of theJapanese government. Although a relatively new political institution, the JapaneseImperial Diet of the 1890s served as a counterweight to the Prime Minister-led positionsof the Emperor’s ruling government (Muramatsu, Ito, and Tsujinaka, 2001, p.82). 6
During the 1890s, the Diet routinely rejected and cut the budget prepared by the ruling
government, including military projects. In contrast, the military was not a major politicalplayer until at least the end of the Russo-Japanese War (1904-5).7
National legislators such as Atsushi Kawashima, a member of Giin Kurabu[Assembly Members’ Club], a political faction that supported the ruling government
backed Matsukata’s position, and made spirited arguments in favor of adoption.8 For

6

Under the Meiji Constitution of 1889, the first national election of House of Representatives (the Lower
House) was held in July 1890. The first Diet session was in November 1890. Prime Ministers wereappointed by the Emperor with the consultation to Senators (Genro), or veterans of Meiji Restoration of
1868.
7
Harada [2007], pp.34-42.
8
Atsushi Kawashima (1847-1911) was a member of House of Representatives. His career demonstrates
close ties with Matsukata. He was born in Kagoshima, the same prefecture as Matsukata. He had served in
the Ministry of Finance before being elected from his home region in the first national election in 1890. He
was a member of the previous Committee on the Monetary System, and. he supported the gold standard

6

example, Kawashima argued that the “financial credibility would be improved.” Heopined that it would not only enhance Japan’s military power and domestic economy, but
it would stabilize Japanese finances. Japan’s yen-based payments would not be subject toexchange-rate risk. Kawashima suggested that adopting gold would enhance foreign
investors’ credit on Japanese government debts and help Japan attract foreign capital at
reduced rates. He argued cheap and affluent foreign capital could be used to build up astronger military and promote domestic business activities.9
Legislative proponents also argued that going on gold would enhance trade. For
example, Kawashima commented that “to compete with other countries in the tradesphere, we must have the common world currency as others do…The gold standard isbeneficial for the development of commerce and industries. Japan’s main trading partners
are the gold-standard countries.” 10 Ministry of Finance officials had drawn similar
conclusions in the 1895 report, arguing that “many of the once-famous silver standard
countries such as Mexico…have already moved to the gold standard. These trends
indicate the natural course for Japan in financial and economic spheres” (Sakatani,
Appendix to Final Report of the Committee).11
In addition to the benefits arising from what are now referred to as network
externalities, Kawashima suggested that gold standard adoption would reduce exchange
rate volatility for countries sharing the same monetary standard as well as currency risk.

upon the voting on the committee’s final report. During the debate in the Diet in 1897, he belonged to apolitical fraction named Assembly Members’ Club (Giin Kurabu), which supported the ruling government.
In June 1897, two months after the passage of the bills introducing the gold standard, he resigned to
become the first Governor of Japan Hypothec Bank (Nihon Kangyo Ginko), which was also establishedunder Matsukata’s leadership.
9.Imperial Diet (1897), reprinted in Bank of Japan (1960 pp.133-134). Other policymakers, however,suggested this was unnecessary as Japan could simply issue debt denominated in gold.
10
Imperial Diet (1897} reprinted in Bank of Japan (1960, p.135).
11
Committee on the Monetary System (1895) reprinted in Bank of Japan (1957, p.901).

7

“Japan has suffered from fluctuations in domestic prices induced by exchange rate
fluctuations. The price fluctuations induced by exchange rate fluctuations will disappear
under the gold standard. Foreign banks have got substantial premium on foreignexchange transactions of Japanese companies. The Japanese companies do not have to
pay such premium once we introduce the gold standard. Foreign buyers of Japanese
products will request the products more if the prices of the products are stable under thegold standard.” 12 Similarly, Juichi Soeda, Counselor of the Ministry of Finance,
concluded: “Unless we could remove the exchange rate risk, we could not expect properdevelopment of Japanese foreign trade.”13
Proponents of the gold standard suggested that adoption might also lead to an
investment boom: “If we introduce the gold standard, foreign capital will invest in theJapanese markets and buy Japanese government bonds and private securities, and theJapanese commerce and industries will be booming.”14
In introducing the authorizing legislation, Matsukata summed up the Cabinet’s
position: “First, fluctuations of prices will be smaller under the gold standard than under
the silver standard. Second, the introduction of the gold standard will promote trade,
especially with other gold standard countries. Third, the introduction of the gold standard
will reduce exchange rate risk with gold standard currencies. Fourth, the gold standard
will connect the Japanese financial market to overseas markets. As our country has been

12

Imperial Diet (1897) reprinted in Bank of Japan (1960, p.135).
Imperial Diet (1897)reprinted in Bank of Japan (1960, p.158).
14
Comments of Atsushi Kawashima. Imperial Diet (1897), reprinted in Bank of Japan (1960, p.136).
138

developing, we need more communication with overseas financial markets. Fifth, theintroduction of the gold standard will benefit public finance.”15
While the proponents of going onto the gold standard had the powerful backing of
Matsukata and the Ministry of Finance, many other legislators believed that adopting thegold standard would hurt the Japanese economy and that the timing was not propitious.
They noted that the majority opinion of the 1895 report had concluded that recent
fluctuations in the gold-silver price (while Japan was on the silver standard) had
increased the volume of exports, reduced the burdens of debtors and fixed-tax payers,
created a boom in agriculture, and led to prosperity in commerce and industry. As Eiichi
Shibusawa, one member of the 1895 committee and a prominent business leader, wrote:“The exports to gold standard countries increased by more than 260 percent from 1878 to1893 while the imports from these countries only increased by 70 percent over the same
period. This is because the price of exports has fallen while the price of imports has risen.
This has promoted the development of industries, technical progress, and growth in the
demand for labor. These benefits exceed the costs of being a silver standard country.”(Shibusawa, Appendix to Final Report). 16
In the late 19th century, Emperor Meiji set national goals of “bringing more
wealth to the nation, and building a stronger military (fukoku kyouhei).” Business leaders
15

Speech of Finance Minister Court Masayoshi Matsukata. Ministry of Finance (1905, pp.182-183).
Matsukata may have also believed that adopting gold would increase the prestige and standing of Japan
internationally, and that it was broadly consistent with the national goals of modernizing Japan’s economy
and military.
16
Eiichi Shibusawa (1840-1931) was born into a family that was involved in sericulture located near Tokyo.
After the Meiji Restration, he joined Ministry of Finance and drafted the legislation to introduce a single
unit of currency, the yen, and to establish the National Banking system. When he left the government in1873 he established and/or run a number of Japan’s leading companies, including First National Bank, Oji
Paper, Osaka Spinning, Kanegafuchi Spinning, Tokio Marine Insurance, Nippon Yusen (NYK Line), Japan
Railway, and the Tokyo Stock Exchange. He chaired Tokyo Chamber of Commerce from 1878 to 1905 andoften represented the viewpoints of the business community in national political debates. In Japan, he has
been referred to as “Father of Japanese Capitalism.”9such as Eiichi Shibusawa argued that staying on silver would be consistent with thosegoals. Shibusawa wrote, “The effects of the recent fluctuation in parity of gold and silver
are quite beneficial to our economy in general under the current monetary system.
Japanese exports to gold standard countries have increased more than imports from them.
This is because the price of exported goods falls, while the price of imported goods
increases. This has promoted development of industries, import substitution of many
products, technical progress, growth in the demand for labor, and expanded national
wealth. These benefits exceed the costs of being a silver standard country. If Japan
introduces the gold standard, prices would fall, and business conditions would deteriorate,affecting the economy and society badly.” (Shibusawa, Appendix to Final Report).
Based on data from the 1890s, Japan’s exports were concentrated in a few key
commodities and industries. 41 percent of Japanese exports were silk products, and 27
percent were tea, rice, and matches.17 The value added of these commodities was almost
entirely domestic, and Japanese producers of these goods had realized significant benefits
from the depreciation of the silver yen against gold-standard currencies. Indeed, themajority of industrial and commercial sector lobbied to stay on a silver standard. Writingin the Quarterly Journal of Economics in 1898, economist Garrett Droppers wrote thefollowing about the business community’s view on Japan’s monetary standard: “From1886 to 1897, a period of over a decade, it is doubtful whether there was the slightest
demand for return to the gold standard. On the contrary, every so-called decline of silver
was hailed with general satisfaction by those engaged in industrial and commercial
pursuits.”18

17
18

Figures are average shares of exports based on data from 1893-1897.
Droppers (1898, p.164)

10

In contrast to exports, there was no single import that accounted for a large
portion of total imports. Raw cotton accounted for 19 percent, sugar for 10 percent,machinery for 9 percent, and petroleum for 4 percent. Given that imports were used as
inputs into a variety of products or were final goods sold to consumers, it may have been
more difficult for policymakers to drum up support from the business community tojettison the silver standard, since no one industry was experiencing a disproportionate risein input prices (due to the depreciation of silver).
Political opponents of the gold standard allied themselves with the business
community to attack the government’s plan. For example, Kungoro Shigeoka of the
opposition Liberal Party argued that Japan’s export industries would be hurt since theprice of silver had been declining relative to gold while Japan was on the silver standard.
He reasoned that the increase in exports outweighed the costs of exchange-rate volatility:“Although fluctuations in gold-silver exchange rates might induce some inconveniencefor foreign trade, the advantages in competitiveness for the silver standard surpass theinconvenience effect.”19 Shigeoka also maintained that adoption of gold would commit
Japan to persistent trade deficits driven by cheap imports and expensive exports (due togold’s appreciation relative to silver). Ironically, it was the export boom during the silver
standard that may have enabled Japan to go onto the gold standard. According to Miller(2007), export revenues during the period of silver deflation enabled the Imperial Navy ofJapan to purchase British cruisers, defeat China in the Sino-Japanese War of 1894-5, andacquire the indemnity payable in gold, which enabled Japan to go onto the gold standard.

19

The great Meiji era entrepreneur Shibusawa Eiichi also argued that Japanese businesses had benefitedimmensely from cheaper exports during the silver standard; he became the flag bearer of the business
community’s opposition to gold standard adoption (Metzler, 2006, p.30). In contrast, the Ministry of
Finance argued that the benefits to trade and industry were only temporary.

11

In addition, Shigeoka argued the time was not right because Japan had no tariff
autonomy. The so-called “unequal treaties” it was forced to sign with European powers
and the U.S. in the 1860s limited its ability to set tariff rates on imports. He also argued
that, even if going on gold would allow Japan to borrow at lower rates, these rates would
only be temporary: the fall in exports to gold countries (due to leaving silver) would
cause foreign investors to lower their assessment of Japan’s growth rate and, in the end,
result in Japan having to borrow at higher rates.20
Despite this opposition, Matsukata and his allies prevailed by forging strategic
alliances with other political parties. In particular, when Matsukata formed the cabinet in
September 1896, he offered the post of Foreign Minister to Shigenobu Okuma, the leaderof the Progressive Party (another large political party in Japan). While not all Progressive
Party members agreed with the government’s position, Matsukata and his coalition
government brokered a narrow majority that proved sufficient to carry the legislation
forward. 21 The House Committee that was handling the legislation narrowly passed theauthorizing legislation (14 to 12). The bill then cleared the House of Representatives andthe House of Lords and was proclaimed law on March 29th.22 The new currency act tookeffect on October 1, 1997.

Section III. Did Gold Standard Adoption affect Interest Rates?

20

Imperial Diet [1897] reprinted in Bank of Japan [1960], pp.129.
For example, Ukichi Taguchi, a famous free market economist and a member of Progressive Party had
insisted that Japan should move toward the bimetallic standard. He made speeches opposing to the gold
standard and voted against it.
22
Droppers (1898, pp.171-2) suggests that once the legislation came to the floor of the parliament, there
was inadequate time to debate it, and legislators likely only had a hazy conception of the legislation’s
importance for the economy.
21

12

A. Hard Pegs and Sovereign Borrowing

The legislative and committee debates provide an understanding of why somepolicymakers looked favorably upon gold standard adoption for Japan. Many of thearguments made by policymakers in the 1890s are quite similar to those who advocate
fixed exchange rates today: the ability to tap international capital markets at lower rates
of borrowing, reduced exchange-rate instability, and greater trade. We now turn toassessing the consequences of gold standard adoption in order to examine whether
policymakers’ ex ante beliefs about the effects of the gold standard are consistent withrealized outcomes. We begin with an assessment of the effects of gold standard adoption
on sovereign bond yields.
Bordo and Kydland (1995) provided an interpretation of the role of the gold
standard as it relates to the literature on rules for policymakers. They argue that joining
the gold standard tied the hands of the fiscal and monetary authorities of a country, andthat such a monetary rule can serve as a credible commitment mechanism to solve theclassic time-inconsistency problem (Kydland and Prescott, 1985). Government policy issaid to be time inconsistent when a policy plan that is determined to be optimal and to
hold indefinitely into the future is subsequently revised. For example, suppose that agovernment sells debt to finance a war. From an ex ante perspective, it is optimal for thegovernment to service its debt obligations. However, once the bonds have been sold, it is
optimal for the government to default unless there is a commitment mechanism that ties
the hands of the fiscal and monetary authorities. In the absence of a commitment
mechanism, it is time inconsistent for the government to repay its debt obligations.

13Private agents will anticipate the government’s incentive to default and they will not buy
bonds, forcing the government to rely on taxes or money creation. Overall, the existenceof an enforcement mechanism, such as a credible threat to deny the government access toborrowing in the future, means that a socially optimal, but time inconsistent policy ofborrowing can be supported as an equilibrium outcome.
Bordo and Kydland (1995) also argue that the gold standard had an escape clause.
Countries could suspend specie convertibility in the event of a war or a fiscal emergency;
however, after the war or extraordinary event, it was well understood that a country
would return to specie convertibility at the pre-war parity. Generally, resumption
occurred after a “reasonable” delay period during which a country would impose
deflationary policies to retire fiat currency printed for war finance. The United States andFrance, for example, fought wars in the 1860s and 1870s and issued large amounts ofirredeemable paper currency and debt. Following the end of the war, both countries
imposed deflationary policies to restore convertibility following the cessation of
hostilities, and both had returned to a specie standard by 1880. Bordo and Kydland(1995) conclude that the gold standard was a contingent rule with an escape clause.

B. Evidence on Japanese Sovereign Debt from International Capital Markets

One testable implication of committing to a policy rule such as the gold standard
is that it should lower the cost of capital in international capital markets. Indeed, Japan’s
adoption of the gold standard has been frequently cited as a canonical case of thepotential beneficial effects of joining the gold standard. Sussman and Yafeh (2000), for14example, find that country risk of Japanese debt on the London market, defined as thecurrent yield on a long-term Japanese bond minus the yield on the risk-free British consol
declined more than fifty percent (or approximately 200 basis points) when the country
joined the monetary rule in September 1897. They conclude that “the gold standard did
significantly reduce the perceived risk associated with Japanese bonds (Sussman and
Yafeh, 2000, p. 442).”
To carry out the empirical analysis of sovereign yield spreads, Sussman and
Yafeh (2000) spliced the seven percent Japanese sterling bond issued in 1873 and paid
off in 1897 with an unspecified long-term bond issued in 1897 or thereafter. They argue
that this is the best approach for testing the effect of adopting the gold standard on
Japanese yield spreads since “data on domestic bond yields do not exist for Japan until
the beginning of the twentieth century” (Sussman and Yafeh, 2000, fn 9, p. 446). Theirunspecified debt series that begins in 1897 is most likely the Imperial Japanese five
percent bond of 1897 (fully redeemed by 1950) since it was the only debt issue actively
traded on the London market that fits the time series plot shown in their paper. Figure 1graphs these two bond series, where we have spliced them together as in their article.
Using the current yield on the seven percent sterling loan and the five percent bond issue
that appeared on the London market in October 1897, there appears to have been adramatic fall in interest rates.
Unfortunately, there are several problems with splicing the two different bondseries that cast doubt on using these to infer the behavior of interest rates pre and post
gold standard adoption. First, the Japanese government retired the seven percent sterlingissue in the first half of 1897 through a drawing and then sold new long-term five percent

15

bonds that would be completely redeemed by 1950 in the second half of the year.23 Japan
had long planned to retire the bond issue in 1897, which means that the drawing had noconnection with the country’s decision to join the gold standard except for the fact thatthe two events coincidentally took place in the same year (Ministry of Finance, 1904).
Importantly, the redemption provisions of the seven percent debt issue placed a floor oninterest rates of seven percent because investors knew that the bonds would be redeemedat par (where par=100) by April 1897. This means that the current yield provides little
evidence about the Japanese cost of capital since bond market investors would
necessarily take a capital loss if they purchased the seven percent bond at a price abovepar.
Second, the Economist and IMM, two of the most important financial newspapers
in London, reported very little trading activity in Japanese bonds between July 3 andOctober 23, 1897, the period when Japan joined the gold standard. This is because theholders of this bond issue were able to obtain a higher yield relative to short-term market
interest rates given that the debt issue was so close to maturity. They had little incentive
to sell the bond in the market. This again implies that little information can be gained byexamining the yields of these two bond series at this time. In summary, combining two
bonds with different maturities, one with a duration of less than a year and another with aduration as long as 53 years, is simply not an accurate method for measuring the effect of
the gold standard on the cost of capital. It is particularly problematic when the bonds are

23

Bond markets investors were clearly aware ahead of time that the Japanese government intended toredeem the bond issue by April 1897. In the original contract at the primary issue in 1873, the Japanese
government announced it would redeem the bond issue at par by 1897 (Ministry of Finance 1904, p.621).
This information was reported in the Official Stock Exchange Intelligence (see Official Stock Market
Intelligence, 1896, p. 215).

16

spliced together in the same year that Japan was adopting the gold standard – i.e., theyear in which we want to identify the “event.”
An alternative to relying on flawed data is simply to use a single bond issue thatwas trading both before and after gold standard adoption. If one examines the Investors’
Monthly Manual, the five percent Consolidated Loan bond was traded on the London
Stock Exchange around the time of adoption.24 Not only is this bond quoted in London,
but contrary to Sussman and Yafeh’s assertion that there were no relevant domestic bondissues, this bond was originally issued in Tokyo and actively traded on the Japanesemarket. It began trading in London July 1896 and had terms similar to the other bonds
sold by the Japanese government on the British market in 1897. The Consolidated Loanbonds had a maturity length of 50 years and were callable after five years. The only
significant difference between the Consolidated Loan and bonds sold by the Japanese
government immediately after gold standard adoption was that some of the post-adoption
bond was endorsed to be paid in sterling.25 Matsukata’s (1899) book on gold standard
adoption confirms the existence of this domestic Consolidated Loan bond (Table L,
p.378). Figure 2 shows that, contrary to the assertion that yields fell after adoption,
country risk increased. In March 1897, the Consolidated Loan Bond traded at the average
price of 105.5 pound with par value of 100 pounds. After the proclamation of the gold
standard, the price dropped month by month to 95.875 pounds in August. In October, theprice rebounded a little to 99.25 pound, but then continued its decline. It traded at 97
pound in December 1897.

24
25

This bond listed in the IMM as the “92-3-5 red” bond.
Financial History of Meiji-Era, vol.8, National Debts (1904, p.837).

17

C. Evidence on Japanese Sovereign Debt from the Domestic Bond Market

As we have indicated, previous scholarship has denied the existence of domestic
bond issues during our sample period. Contrary to this assertion, this section presents
evidence that an active and liquid market for domestic government bonds existed, andthat prices and yields of these bonds can be used to clarify further whether Japan’s
adoption the gold standard had any effects on its borrowing costs.
From 1870-1896, the Japanese government issued seventeen bonds in thedomestic market and two in the London Market. Although the Japanese government
issued its first sovereign bond in London in 1870, it issued bonds in the domestic markets
beginning as early as 1872. Beginning in the early 1870s, traditional money changers andpawnbrokers intermediated trades of government bonds over the counter, and as early as
1874-75, informal multilateral trading markets emerged in Tokyo.26 At this point, thegovernment decided to establish official stock exchanges in financial centers such as
Tokyo and Osaka, and in 1878, stock exchanges in these two cities opened. The
organizational structures of the Tokyo and Osaka exchanges were imported from Westernexchanges, but many elements of day-to-day operational procedures were adopted fromthe long-standing rice trading market based in Dojima.27 From their inception, the Osakaand Tokyo stock exchanges listed both government bonds and company stocks. In thelate 1880s and early 1890s, the Japanese securities markets grew in volume and trading
activity. Non-financial private investors more than doubled their securities holdings from

26

Shimura (1980, p.29).
For example, they introduced three-month futures based on what had been developed in trading rice
futures (Tokyo Stock Exchange, 1928, pp.2-3).

27

18

1886 to 1896. Japanese non-financial private sector ownership of financial assets
increased from 265 million yen to 536 million yen between 1886 and 1896.28
The holdings of Japanese securities were widespread during our sample period.
Private investors, including merchants and landowners, actively invested in domestic
securities, and held large portions of government bonds and company stocks. As of theend of 1896, non-financial private investors owned 160-million-yen of government bonds(44 percent of the total outstanding) and 354-million-yen of company stocks (93 percent
of total outstanding), while financial institutions owned 84-million-yen of government
bonds and 27-million-yen in equities (Fujino and Teranishi, 2000). Anecdotal evidence
also suggests that merchants and landowners in the countryside as well as in the cities
traded securities on an over the counter basis.29
The Tokyo Stock Exchange (TSE) served as the central market in Japan. This
market appears to have been well integrated with the rest of the world. Comparing thequotations for the Consolidated Loan bond in the London and Tokyo markets in Figure 2,
we observe that the movements between the debt series are nearly identical. The minor
differences between the interest rates probably reflect the fact that yields from thedomestic Japanese market are computed from the average monthly bond price, while theyields for the London series are calculated from end-of-month prices reported in the IMM.
Nevertheless, the Johansen Maximum Likelihood Procedure indicates that the null
hypothesis of no cointegration can be rejected at the five-percent level of significance for28
29

In this section, figures of financial assets are from Fujino and Teranishi (2000).
For example, see Nakamura (2007).

19the two interest rate series. 30 The two Japanese bond price series share a common
stochastic trend, suggesting that the London and Tokyo markets were integrated.
As of December 1896, TSE listed six government bonds, one municipal bond and
80 company stocks. Included in these domestically listed issues were two long-termbonds that traded actively on the Tokyo exchange before and after the country adopted
the gold standard: (1) the previously mentioned five percent Consolidated Loan of 175
million yen that was sold at various dates between 1887 and 1895 and (2) the five percent
War Loan of 125 million yen that was issued to help pay for the Japanese War with
China in 1894-95. The two debt issues were to be redeemed in 1951 and 1910,
respectively. Both issues paid interest in silver yen before the country adopted the gold
standard in September 1897. After joining the monetary rule, the Japanese government
began making interest payments on its domestic debt obligations in gold yen. This meansthat joining the gold standard could have also reduced exchange-rate risk, the risk
associated with changes in the value of the currency, in addition to country or politicalrisk.
Figure 3 shows the current yield for the two Japanese bond series from 1887-1910.
The two series are highly correlated and do not seem to significantly decline with theintroduction of the gold standard. Indeed, Figure 3 suggests that domestic interest rates inJapan may have actually increased after the adoption of the gold standard. 31 Simple
summary statistics show that Japanese interest rates increased by approximately 30 basis

30

The estimated values for the λMAX and λTRACE test statistics were 15.20 and 17.12, respectively.
Both the lambda max and lambda statistics indicate that the null hypothesis of no cointegration for yieldsof the Consolidated loan on the London and Tokyo markets can be rejected at the five percent level ofsignificance.

31

20

points in the six months after the country adopted the gold standard.32 As a robustness
check, Figure 4 shows the interest-rate differential between Japanese bonds and the “riskfree” British consol. The interest-rate differential should help control for the effect ofgold inflation that began in 1897-98. Again, the Japanese yield spread does not appear to
decline with the adoption of the gold standard.
The time-series graphs suggest that joining the gold standard did not reducesovereign risk for Japan. To formally test this hypothesis, we use structural break analysis
and follow the procedure developed by Zivot-Andrews (1992). This allows us to test
whether adopting the gold standard lowered the level, trend, or level and trend ofJapanese interest rates and yield spreads. We specify a ten-year window around
September 1897, the date Japan joined the gold standard, to test if the adoption of thegold standard reduced domestic interest rates. We do not specify a breakpoint a priori,
given that the pre-selection of a change point biases the results towards finding a
structural break (Christiano, 1992). The null hypothesis of the Zivot-Andrews structural
break model, H0, for a given time series process yt can be written as:(1)

yt = µ + yt-1 + et,where µ is the mean of a given time series and et is a white noise disturbance term.
The three different alternative hypotheses, H1, can be written as follows:

32

Japanese interest rates increased by about 15 basis points in the six months prior to Japan joining the gold
standard.

21k(2) ∆y t = µ + β t + θDU t + αy t −1 + ∑ c j ∆y t − j + et
j =1k(3) ∆y t = µ + β t + γDTt + αy t −1 + ∑ c j ∆y t − j + et
j =1k(4) ∆y t = µ + β t + θDU t + γDTt + αy t −1 + ∑ c j ∆y t − j + et
j =1

Equation (2) is a “crash” model that allows for a one-time change in the intercept
at a break date denoted by TB. This specification captures a large drop in sovereign risk
similar to the dramatic decline in Japanese interest rates found by Sussman and Yafeh(2000). Equation (3) is used to test for stationarity around a broken trend at TB. This
specification allows for a gradual decline in sovereign risk if the “good housekeeping”
effect of the gold standard is incorporated into interest rates over a long period of time.
Equation (4) is the most general specification that allows for a change in the intercept andtrend at TB.
DUt is a dummy variable that captures the shift in the intercept and takes a valueof 1 if t>TB. DTt is another indicator variable that represents the shift in the deterministic
trend at time TB. DTt is equal to (t-TB) if (t>TB) and zero otherwise. To control forserial correlation, we also included lagged differences of the dependent variable ascovariates in the three models. The number of lagged differences employed in the breaktests is selected on the basis of the Akaike Information Criteria (AIC). In each of thethree alternative hypotheses, yt is assumed to be a stationary process with one structural
break. The null hypothesis is rejected if the αt coefficient is significantly different from
zero.

22

The empirical results for the structural break tests of Japanese domestic interest
rates and yield spreads are shown in Table 1. In all six regressions, the structural break
test is not statistically significant at the five- or ten-percent level of significance. The
absence of statistically significant results holds regardless of whether we allow for achange in the intercept, the trend, or the intercept and trend of interest rates and yieldspreads. Only one of the breakpoints identified with the Zivot-Andrews test occurs withina few months of the introduction of the gold standard. Overall, and in contrast to what
supporters of gold standard adoption argued, the empirical evidence suggests that the
introduction of the gold standard did not lead to a significant decline in Japanese interest
rates.33
Finally, if adopting the gold standard was meant to improve Japan’s reputation incapital markets and allow it to issue more debt, the period directly after adopting gold isvery revealing. Confident with the victory of the Sino-Japanese war and the introductionof the gold standard, the government floated a new ¥100 million bond issue in London in
1899, but the debt issue met with tepid response from foreign investors. Less than 10
percent of the primary issue was purchased in the London market. The Japanese
government (with assistance from the Bank of Japan) responded by purchasing nearly 45
percent of the issue, with the underwriters having to absorb the remainder. Japan had
believed its credit rating, after adopting gold was “between Germany and Italy,” butaccording to Suzuki (1994) and Metzler (2006), it had overestimated its creditworthinessin foreign markets and later additional attempts to engage foreigners in purchasing these33

We also tested Japanese interest rates and yield spreads for a structural break over the entire sample
period 1887-1910. The results are reported in the Statistical Appendix. Again, we do not find evidence thatthe gold standard significantly reduced interest rates. We also are not able to reject the null hypothesis of aunit root in favor of a structural break model.

23bonds (including attempts by J.P. Morgan and Co., Baring Brothers, and the Rothschilds)
were rebuffed by investors.
Furthermore, archival evidence suggests that if, anything, the reason why Japanissued little debt in the 1880s and early 1890s had more to do with fear of beingcolonized by foreign creditor governments than it did with not being on gold. For
example in July 1880, Former Finance Minister Shigenobu Okuma and former Internal
Minister Hirobumi Ito jointly proposed the establishment of “the specie bank,” which
would be the Japanese equivalent of the Bank of England or the Bank of France. To thisend, they proposed to issue a government bond which would be salable to foreign
investors.34 Internal Minister Matsukata strongly opposed this idea, writing in September,“We are now in a vulnerable position without having the independence of tariff andjustice. If we depended on capital of foreigners, who are superior in knowledge andfinancial power, we should be in a big trouble even though we might see temporary
inflow of specie. We would have nothing to do when Japan should be a country like
Egypt, Turkey or India.”35 Matsukata turned down the proposal, and two years later, as
finance minister, he established the Bank of Japan, which was purely domestic.

Section IV. How did Gold Standard Adoption affect Trade?

As identified by the parliamentary debates and the Committee on the Monetary
System, policymakers also believed that trade would be impacted by the adoption of thegold standard, but there was considerable disagreement as to how it would affect trade.

34
35

Okuma (1880).
Matsukata (1880).

24

Some believed that maintaining the silver standard was beneficial to trade as it enabled
Japan to sell its exports more cheaply to gold standard countries. Others argued that
adopting gold would be beneficial for trade as it would lower exchange-rate volatility andtransaction costs. Other policymakers noted that the gains from being on silver weretransitory, based on a favorable silver-gold price that would not persist, and that going ongold would at least permit Japan to trade among a global trade network that wasorganized around gold and not silver.
To test these three hypotheses, we estimate a gravity model of Japan’s bilateral
trade flows during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. We collected data on
bilateral trade flows between Japan and other countries from the Principal Trade of
Foreign Countries of the British Board of Trade Statistics and from Japan’s Ministry of
Finance, Annual Return of the Foreign Trade of the Empire of Japan. These two primarysources contain more than 800 observations on Japanese bilateral trade flows withtwenty-six of its main trading partners for the years 1877-1912. The sample contains dataon bilateral flows between Japan and countries from Asia, Europe, North and SouthAmerica including: Australia, China, French Indochina, Hong Kong, India, Korea, New
Zealand, Philippines, Siam, Straits Settlement, Austria, Belgium, Denmark, France,
Germany, Italy, Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, Switzerland, Russia, Turkey, Hawaii,
United States, Canada, and Peru.
A gravity model is a very simple empirical relationship meant to capture the main
effects of trade: mass and distance. As in a standard gravity equation, mass (measured
here by the size of countries) is proportional to trade whereas distance should vary
inversely. Given that we do not have GDP estimates for many of the dyadic trade pairs in25

our sample, we use population as a proxy for mass which has been shown to have acorrelation of nearly ninety percent with output estimates for the classical gold standard
period (Mitchener and Weidenmier, 2007).
We augment the gravity equation with additional covariates which are meant tocapture other influences on bilateral trade. We include railroad track miles to proxy forthe importance of transportation infrastructure in promoting bilateral trade flows. We
include a dummy variable to indicate whether Japan’s trading partner is landlocked.
Since some studies have indicated that war negatively impacts trade flows (Glick andTaylor, 2006), a war indicator variable is included to take into account the fact that Japanfought in two wars during our time period. The indicator variable takes on a value of 1
when Japan was at war with China (1894-95) or Russia (1904-05). We also include adummy variable to capture differences in trade policy. In the 1860s, the United States andmost European countries forced Japan to sign “unequal trade treaties,” which in effectgave their exports the lowest tariff rates prevailing in Japan; but these countries did notreciprocate and grant Japanese exports the lowest prevailing rates in their markets. Hence,
we code a Most Favored Nation (MFN) dummy variable two ways, depending on thedependent variable. If we are examining total bilateral trade, then the MFN dummy takes
on a value of one for countries that forced Japan to sign a unilateral MFN agreement.36 If
our outcome variable is Japan’s exports, then the MFN dummy takes on a value of one incases where Japan has a reciprocal MFN arrangement (or in Korea and China where it
imposed unilateral agreements during our sample period).
The basic estimation equations take two forms:

36

These unequal treaties were renegotiated during our sample period, and the unilateral MFN provisions
were changed to bilateral agreements. (See Murase, 1976).

26

(5) ln(BITRADEijt) = β0 + β1ln(RRiRRj)t + β2ln(PopiPopj)t + β3ln(Dist)ij + β4Goldij+ β5Silverij +β6GoldSilverij + β7SilverGoldij + β7Warij,t-k + β7MFN1ij + β8Lndlckij + εijt,(6) ln(EXPORTSijt) = β0 + β1ln(RRiRRj)t + β2ln(PopiPopj)t + β3ln(Dist)ij + β4Goldij+ β5Silverij +β6GoldSilverij + β7SilverGoldij + β7Warij,t-k + β7MFN2ij + β8Lndlckij + εijt,
where i denotes a trade partner of Japan, j denotes Japan, t denotes time, k denotes lags,
and other variables are defined as:

•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•

BITRADEijt denotes the bilateral trade between Japan and country i at time t;
EXPORTSijt denotes Japanese exports to country i at time t;
RR is railroad track miles;
Pop is population;
Dist is distance between Japan and country i;
Lndlck is a binary variable which is unity if Japan’s trade partner is landlocked;
Gold is a binary variable which is unity if country i and Japan are both on the gold
standard;
Silver is a binary variable which is unity if country i and Japan both are on thesilver standard;
GoldSilver is a binary variable which is unity if Japan is on the gold standard andcountry i is on the silver standard.
SilverGold is a binary variable which is unity if Japan is on the silver standard
and country i is on the gold standard.
War is a binary variable which is unity if Japan is at war with China or Russia
MFN1 is a binary variable that takes a value of 1 if a trade power has imposed a
unilateral most favored nation treaty on Japan and that is in effect at time t.
MFN2 is a binary variable that takes a value of 1 if Japan has negotiated areciprocal most favored nation treaty with a trade partner or if it has imposed a
unilateral MFN on a trade partner that is in effect at time t.
and ε is a well-behaved error term capturing other influences on bilateral trade.

The coefficients of interest in equations (5) and (6) are β4-β7, and measure the
network externality and competitiveness effects of monetary standards on Japanesebilateral trade flows. The gold and silver dummy variables, Goldij and Silverij, capture the27network externalities associated with two countries belonging to the same monetary
standard. If membership in the same monetary standard reduces transactions costs or
exchange rate volatility, then the coefficients on the gold and silver dummy variables
should be large and statistically significant. On the other hand, SilverGoldij and
GoldSilverij measure the competitiveness effect between Japan and its trading partner
when the two countries have different monetary standards (i.e., Japan is on silver and theother country is on gold or Japan is on gold and the other country is on a silver standard).
The baseline for comparison for all dummies is paper or bimetallic standards. This
relative price effect could be an important determinant of bilateral trade flows during theperiod 1885-1896 when silver depreciated more than 50 percent against gold.
Coding the monetary standards in this manner is important for two reasons. First, it
enables us to provide empirical estimates for the three political economy hypotheses
described above. Second, some of Japan’s most important trading partners (China andKorea) were on silver, so understanding both the impact of being on silver and on gold isrelevant for the political economy arguments as well as for properly quantifying thenature of Japanese trade in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
We estimate equations (1) and (2) with both fixed and random effects panel
techniques, and include year dummies to control for annual shocks such as global
financial crises and recessions. The fixed-effects or within estimator is equivalent toadding a complete set of country pair-specific intercepts to the estimating equation.
While fixed-effects ensures that the estimation of the betas are consistent, they may not
be efficient. The random effects estimator can yield more efficient estimates, but it does
not apply in as wide a range of circumstances as the fixed-effects estimator.

28

The empirical results for total bilateral trade are presented in Table 2. We firstexamine the arguments for network externalities – that being on the same monetary
standard potentially reduced transaction costs and exchange rate volatility. Conditioning
on other variables, when both Japan and its trade partners were both on the silver
standard, bilateral trade received a boost of over 1,600 percent ((e2.850-1)*100) relative tobeing on a bimetallic or paper standard. The silver-standard effect is statisticallysignificant at the one-percent level in both the fixed and random effects model. WhenJapan and its trade partners were both on the gold standard, bilateral trade flows
increased by approximately 83 percent. The effect is statistically significant at the tenpercent level in the fixed effects models and at the five-percent level in the random
effects specification. Hence, policymakers who believed that Japan’s trade would benefit
from moving to gold, since other countries were also adopting gold, were in part correct;
the network externalities of being on gold significantly boosted trade. However, the effectwas considerably smaller than the benefit that Japan had previously received from being
on the same monetary standard as silver countries.
The competitiveness effects of monetary standards can be assessed by examining
the coefficients for the silver-gold and gold-silver variables. Both of these coefficients
have large positive and statistically significant effects on bilateral trade flows. WhenJapan was on the silver standard and its trade partner was on gold, total trade increased
by 213 percent.37 When Japan was on the gold standard and its trade partner was on silver,
total trade increased by 542 percent. Hence, advocates of the silver standard were correctin emphasizing that Japan had received an enormous boost in its trade due to the37

Metzler (2006) also suggests Japan saw an increase in trade when it was on the silver standard, although
he does not provide a formal test as we do here.

29

depreciation of silver when it was on the silver standard, but proponents of going to gold
were also correct, although perhaps more out of luck than out of perfect foresight. Goldbegan to depreciate against silver at about the same time that Japan joined the gold
standard. If Japan had remained on silver until 1913, it would not only have seen its
competitiveness deteriorate, but it would also have lost out on the enormous gain incompetitiveness from being on gold. Indeed, the point estimate for the gold-silver
variable is also significantly larger than the gold dummy suggesting that the relative priceeffect was much more important than the network externality effect for stimulating
Japanese trade.
Contrary to the view that the timing of the adoption was pure coincidence, in theyear following Japan’s adoption of gold, Droppers (1898, p.174) suggested that “there
was a general belief in Japan that silver had reached its lowest point in terms of gold, andthat…the chances of a further fall were at least slight, as compared to a rise. Therefore, it
was urged, that if the yen could be fixed in gold at near its existing exchange value, Japan,
having exhausted all the benefits of the silver standard, would crystallize them into apermanent advantage…From this point of view, Japan’s adoption of the gold standard
was rather a shrewd attempt to solidify all the advantages she had derived from the silver
standard, a form of insurance against future dangers, than any objection to the silver
standard itself.” Droppers acknowledges, however, that if this were the chief motive of
the Japanese government, they were incredibly secretive about it, as advocates of the gold
standard did not mention it in policy debates. And, in contrast to foreign press andforeign financial investors which believed this might have been the motive, the Japanese
did not write about this as a reason for gold standard adoption.

30

The concern over relative prices in the parliamentary debates was made withrespect to export industries. That is, policymakers were concerned that fluctuations in the
gold-silver price directly impacted the competitiveness of exporters. They were lessconcerned with how they influenced the quantity of imports. Hence, in Table 3, we
present gravity models where the dependent variable is Japanese exports to its trading
partners (rather than total trade).38 The coefficients for the gold-silver and silver-gold
dummy variables both show large, positive effects on exports. This is consistent withwhat policymakers believed was occurring prior to 1897: Japan’s manufacturing exports
were benefitting from the decline in the relative price of silver. With respect to the gold
standard, the competitiveness effect (gold-silver dummy) has a much larger effect onexports than the network externality effect (gold dummy) – 700 percent versus 117
percent, although the network effect is only marginally statistically significant (at the 13
percent level). With respect to the silver standard, the network externality effect has asubstantially larger impact on exports than the relative-price effect (1608 versus 322
percent).
In terms of our other covariates, distance from Japan has a strong negative impact
on both total trade and exports while transportation networks (proxied by railways) seemto matter more only for Japan’s exports. Although population has a negative andstatistically significant effect on exports, the unconditional correlation between (log)exports and population is positive, but not statistically significantly different from zero.39
The war variables did not significantly reduce trade in the different specifications. The
38

We also estimated tobit models for the export models to control for the fact that there were someobservations with values of zero for exports. The basic tenor of the results for the gold and silver
coefficients remains unchanged.
39
When use a median regression model for exports, we find that population has a positive sign, but isinsignificant at conventional levels of statistical significance.

31

MFN treaties substantially boosted total trade by roughly 433 percent, but the effect onexports is not statistically significantly different from zero. Given the way we have coded
MFN1 and MFN2, we can interpret these findings in the following way. The “unequal
treaties” that Japan was forced to sign in the 1860s raised total trade by increasing
imports, but the reciprocal agreements that Japan signed, and the unilateral treaties it
forced Korea and China to sign, had little impact on its exports.

V. Did the Gold Standard Create an Investment Boom?

As mentioned in the legislative debates over gold standard adoption, one
consequence of adoption might have been to facilitate industrialization and spur adomestic investment boom. Since we have already shown that bond spreads did not movein the direction that would support lower borrowing costs overseas, this section explores
whether domestic investment increased after gold standard adoption. To examine theinvestment-boom hypothesis, we first gathered new monthly data on Japanese stock
prices around the time of gold standard adoption from the archives of the Tokyo Stock
Exchange. Based on data for stocks listed and actively traded on the Tokyo exchange, we
calculated a monthly capitalized market index of 13 companies for the period 1895-1899.
The index represents approximately 70 percent of the capitalized market value of theJapanese stock exchange.40 If expected profitability of Japanese companies improved
with gold standard adoption, then this should have been capitalized into stock prices, andour composite index should show an increase after the time of adoption.
40

Although it is possible that the increase in bilateral trade flows might have led to a surge in domestic
investment, most of the firms included in our stock sample were involved in domestic finance and transport– railway companies building passenger railways.

32However, as Figure 5 shows, the pattern does not support the idea that the gold
standard would cause an investment boom that would lead to higher profitability ofJapanese firms. The Japanese stock market index increased in the beginning of thesample before declining more than 35 percent in the one-year period before Japan joined
the gold standard. The stock market index then fell by an additional ten percent in theyear after Japan joined the gold standard. As a robustness check, we also calculated an
unweighted stock market index for the period. As shown in Figure 6, the unweighted
stock market index declined more than 30 percent after gold standard adoption.
Commentators noted that the decline in security prices reflected a general feeling of
uncertainty in the business community following gold standard adoption.41
To more directly assess whether an investment boom occurred after gold standard
adoption, we collected data on the investment-GNP ratio. We compared the average
investment-GNP ratio for the five-year period before Japan (1893-1897) joined the gold
standard with the five-year period after Japan joined gold (1898-1902). We chose to end
the “gold standard effect” in 1902 since some scholars have noted that the RussoJapanese War (1904-05) enhanced the country’s international standing and credibility(Metzler, 2006; Sussman and Yafeh, 2000). The average investment-GNP ratio was
actually higher in the five-year period before Japan joined the gold standard (17.1 to 16
percent). As a robustness check, we dropped the value of the ratio for 1897 from the pregold period (since Japan voted to join gold in March but did not formally adopt themonetary rule until September) and recomputed the investment-GNP ratio in the fiveyear period before and after 1897. The investment-GNP ratio is slightly higher when
Japan was on the silver standard than after it went on gold: 16.3 versus 16 percent.
41

Droppers (1898, p.177).

33

Overall, the empirical evidence suggests that joining the gold standard did not stimulate aboom in the Japanese equity market or in investment spending.

VI. Conclusion
This paper argues that in order to understand the reasons why countries adopted
monetary standards and the consequences they had on their economies, it is helpful to
begin the analysis by considering the political economy of the adoption decision. Interest
groups may not be aligned (as their objective functions may differ) and outcomes may beuncertain. Examining countries adoption decisions on a case-by-case basis, as we do inthis paper, enables the researcher to design empirical tests that are based on the ex antebeliefs of policymakers and to measure the effects of adoption on multiple outcome
variables.
Our examination of the historical record suggests that a priori policymakers weresplit over of Japan’s decision to join the gold standard in 1897. Many influential businessleaders, academics, and government officials emphasized that adopting gold as themonetary standard would significantly impact trade, but they disagreed over whether it
would be beneficial or detrimental. Some, like Matsukata, argued that it would increase
exports because other countries were moving to gold and that Japan would have lessexchange-rate volatility and lower transaction costs if it too were on gold. Others argued
that it would prematurely terminate the benefits of being on silver: the declining price ofsilver since 1870 had been lowering the relative price of Japanese exports and many ofJapan’s most important trading partners were on the silver standard. Other policymakers
encouraged Japan to adopt the gold standard for different reasons – that it would be34perceived by markets as a move towards better institutions and would hence lower
Japan’s borrowing costs.
Using newly assembled data on interest rates, we show that Japan’s adoption of
the gold standard did not lower Japan’s borrowing costs nor lead to a surge in domestic
investment. Based on evidence from both international and domestic capital markets, ifanything, there was a slight increase in the rates of borrowing after adoption. Thesefindings suggest a major reinterpretation of Meiji financial history since previous studies
had associated a reduction in borrowing costs with gold standard adoption. We show that
Sussman and Yafeh (2000) not only used a flawed data series, but that they ignored
evidence from other Japanese sovereign bonds that actively traded in financial markets.
While it is theoretically possible that a hard peg can serve as a mechanism for solving thetime inconsistency problem, the case of Japan does not appear to be the canonical casestudy of such a mechanism.
Instead, Japan’s experience suggests that metallic standards had a much moresignificant effect on trade flows. Estimates from gravity models show that bilateral trade
increased when Japan went onto gold. When we decompose this effect, we find that thelargest boost in trade came from the competitiveness effect (the decline in the gold-silver
price ratio) rather than from network externalities (the reduction in transaction costs
associated with being on the same monetary standard as many other countries). Previous
scholarship has not attempted to disentangle these two channels, so this finding helps toclarify precisely how Japan’s trade increased as a result of gold standard adoption.
Our results also suggest that Japan received a large boost to its bilateral trade
when it was on the silver standard. The effect appears to have been even larger than what35

was realized for Japan when it went onto gold. Nevertheless, Japan’s adoption of the gold
standard proved to be fortuitously timed as the decline in silver prices reversed course ataround the same time Japan made the switch to gold. Hence, one can conclude that if
Japan had remained on the silver standard it would have necessarily foregone a large gainin the competitiveness of its exports (something that was not known to policymakers exante), and may have faced a declining benefit via network externalities as more and morecountries adopted gold. The political economy approach that we have used to study
Japan’s adoption decision has shed new light on the reasons for and consequences ofadoption, and suggests a robust alternative to the cross-country approach that could be
employed to examine the adoption of gold for other countries during the classical gold
standard era.

36

References
Bordo, Michael and Finn Kydland (1995). “The Gold Standard as a Rule: An Essay in
Explorations.” Explorations in Economic History vol. 32(4) pp. 423-64.
Bordo, Michael and Hugh Rockoff (1996). “The Gold Standard as a Good Housekeeping
Seal of Approval” Journal of Economic History vol. 56 pp. 389-428.
Bytheway, Simon. (2001). “Japan’s adoption of the Gold Standard: Financial andMonetary Reform in the Meiji Period.” In John McGuire, Patrick Bertola, andPeter Reeves (eds.) Evolution of the World Economy, Precious Metals and India.
Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp.79-95.
Christiano, Lawrence (1992). “Searching for a Break in GNP.” Journal of Business andEconomic Statistics vol. 10 pp. 237-50.
Committee on the Monetary System (1895) “Final Report,”reprinted in Bank of Japan(1957), Nihon Kin’yu Shi Shiryo: Meiji/Taisho Hen, (Materials of Japan’s
Financial History: Meiji/Taisho Edition), 17.
Droppers, Garrett. (1898). “Monetary Changes in Japan.” Quarterly Journal of
Economics 12(2): 153-185.
Ferguson, Niall and M. Schularick (2006a). “The Empire Effect: The Determinants ofCountry Risk in the First Era of Globalization.” Journal of Economic History vol.
66(2) pp. 283-312.
Ferguson, Niall and M. Schularick (2006b). “The Thin Film of Gold: The Limits ofMonetary Commitments.” Harvard Business School Working Paper.
Flandreau, Marc and Mathilde Maurel (2005). “Monetary Union, Trade Integration, andBusiness Cycles in the 19th Century.” Open Economies Review vol. 16(2) pp. 13552.
Flandreau, Marc and Frederic Zúmer (2004), The Making of Global Finance. Paris:
OECD.
Fujino, Shozaburo, and Juro Teranishi (2000), Nihon Kin’yu no Suryo Bunseki (AnQuantitative Analysis of Finance in Japan), Toyo Keizai Shinpo Sha (in Japanese).

37Glick, Reuven and Alan M. Taylor (2006). Collateral Damage: Trade Disruption and theEconomic Impact of War,” NBER Working Paper 11565.
Harada, Keiichi (2007), Nisshin-Nichiro Senso: Nihon Kin-Gendai Shi, (Sino/RussoJapanese War: Modern and Contemporary Japanese History), 3, Iwanami Shoten(in Japanese).
Imperial Diet (1897), “Minutes of General Assembly and Committees of the 10th
Session,” reprinted in Bank of Japan (1960), Nihon Kin’yu Shi Shiryo:
Meiji/Taisho Hen, 14 (Materials of Japan’s Financial History: Meiji/Taisho
Edition), 14, (in Japanese).
Kydland, Finn and Edward Prescott. (1985). “Rules Rather than Discretion: The
Inconsistency of Optimal Plans.” Journal of Political Economy vol. 85(3) pp.
473-91.
Lopez-Cordova, J. Ernesto and Christopher Meissner. (2003). “Exchange-Rate Regimes
and International Trade: Evidence from the Classical Gold Standard Era.”
American Economic Review vol. 93(1) pp. 344-53.
Matsukata, Masayoshi (1880), “Zaisei-Gi” (On Financial Policy), reprinted in Bank ofJapan (1958), Nihon Kin’yu Shi Shiryo: Meiji/Taisho Hen, 4 (Materials of Japan’s
Financial History: Meiji/Taisho Edition), 4, pp. 983-988 (in Japanese).
Matsukata, Masayoshi (1899) Report on the Adoption of the Gold Standard in Japan,
Tokio, the Government Press (in Japanese, also translated into English).
Mauro, Paolo, Nathan Sussman and Yishay Yafeh (2006), Emerging Markets andFinancial Globalization. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Metzler, Mark. (2006). Lever of Empire: The International Gold Standard and the Crisisof Liberalism in Prewar Japan. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Meissner, Chris. (2005). “A New World Order: Explaining the International Diffusion of
the Gold Standard, 1870-1913.” Journal of International Economics. 66: 385-406.
Miller, Edward S. (2007). Bankrupting the Enemy: The U.S. Financial Siege of Japan
Before Pearl Harbor. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press.

38

Ministry of Finance (1904) Meiji Zaisei Shi, 8: Kokusai (Financial History of the MeijiEra, 8: National Debts) (in Japanese).
Ministry of Finance (1905) Meiji Zaisei Shi, 11: Tuka (Financial History of the Meiji Era,
11: Money) (in Japanese).
Ministry of Finance; Financial Bureau (1898), “Kahei-Hou Seitei oyobi Jisshi Houkoku”(The Report on the Legislation of the Currency Act and its Implementation),
reprinted in Bank of Japan (1958), Nihon Kin’yu Shi Shiryo: Meiji/Taisho Hen, 17(Materials of Japan’s Financial History: Meiji/Taisho Edition), 17, pp. 1-289 (inJapanese).
Ministry of Finance (1898), “Meiji 30 Nen Heisei Kaikaku Shimatsu Gaiyou” (The
Overview of the Reform of the Monetary System in 1899), reprinted in Bank ofJapan (1958), Nihon Kin’yu Shi Shiryo: Meiji/Taisho Hen, 17 (Materials ofJapan’s Financial History: Meiji/Taisho Edition), 17, pp. 291-558 (in Japanese).
Mitchener, Kris James and Marc D. Weidenmier. (2007). “Trade and Empire,” Santa
Clara University Working Paper.
Muramatsu, Michio, Mitsutoshi Ito, and Yutaka Tsujinaka (2001), Nihon no Seiji(Japanese Politics), 2nd edition, Toyo Keizai Shinpo Sha (in Japanese).
Murase, Shinya (1976). “The Most-Favored Nation Treatment in Japan’s Treaty Practiceduring the Period, 1854-1905.” American Journal of International Law vol. 70(2)pp.273-297.
Nakamura, Naofumi (2007), “Meijiki no Yuka Shoken Toshi (Securities Investments in
Meiji Era),” Ishii, Kanji and Satoru Nakanishi eds., Sangyoka to Shoka Keiei(Industrialization and the Family Merchant Business), Nagoya University Press(in Japanese).
Obstfeld, Maurice and Alan M. Taylor (2003), “Sovereign Risk ,Credibility and the Gold
Standard, 1870-1913 versus 1925-1931.” Economic Journal vol. 113 (487) pp. 135.
Official Stock Market Intelligence. Various years. London.

39

Okuma,Shigenobu (1880), “Kousai Shinbo oyobi Ginkou no Setsuritu ni Kansuru Seigi”(An Proposal for A New Government Bond Issue and the Establishment of A
Bank), reprinted in Bank of Japan (1958), Nihon Kin’yu Shi Shiryo: Meiji/Taisho
Hen, 4 (Materials of Japan’s Financial History: Meiji/Taisho Edition), 4, pp. 754756 (in Japanese).
Shimura, Kaichi (1980), Nihon Kousyasai Shijou Shi (A History of Bond Markets inJapan), Tokyo, University of Tokyo Press (in Japanese).
Sussman, Nathan and Yishay Yafeh (2000), “Institutions, Reforms and Country Risk:
Lessons from Japanese Government Debt in the Meiji Period,” Journal of
Economic History vol. 60 pp. 442-67.
Suzuki, Toshio (1994), Japanese Government Loan Issues on the London Capital Market,
1870-1913, London, The Athlone Press.
Tokyo Stock Exchange (1928), Tokyo Kabushiki Torihikijo 50 Nenshi (50 years Historyof Tokyo Stock Exchange), Tokyo, Tokyo Stock Exchange.
Zivot, Eric and Donald Andrews. (1992). “Further Evidence on the Great Crash, Oil Price
Shock, and the Unit Root Hypothesis.” Journal of Business and Economic
Statistics vol. 10 pp.251-70.

40

41

Consolidated Loan
Minimum T-test-3.612-3.354-4.247275

Consolidated Loan
Minimum T-test-4.309-3.522-4.541
275

Critical Values of Zivot-Andrews
Test
Intercept
Trend
Intercept and Trend
1%
-5.34
-4.93
-5.57

* significant at 10%; ** significant at 5%; *** significant at 1%

Break Test
Intercept
Trend
Intercept and Trend
Observations

Panel A: Yield Spreads* significant at 10%; ** significant at 5%; *** significant at 1%

Break Test
Intercept
Trend
Intercept and Trend
Observations

Panel A: Interest Rates

Table 1: Zivot-Andrews Structural
Break Tests, 1892-1902

5%
-4.8
-4.43
-5.08

Break Date
1894/6
1897/81894/6275

Break Date
1894/101899/6
1894/6
275

10%
-4.58
-4.11
-4.82

War Loan
Minimum T-test-4.365-3.9-4.365175

War Loan
Minimum T-test-4.339-3.463-4.348175

Break Date
1899/3
1898/1
1899/3
175

Break Date
1899/3
1894/3
1898/7175

Table 2: The Effects of Monetary Standards on Japanese Bilateral Trade, 1877-1912
Independent Variables
SilverGold
Silver*Gold
Gold*Silver
MFN1

Fixed Effects
2.819***(0.52)
0.604*(0.36)
1.142***(0.34)
1.861***(0.48)
1.737***(0.42)

Distance
Landlock
Railroad

Random Effects
2.760***(0.52)
0.729**(0.36)
1.245***(0.34)
1.872***(0.48)
1.674***(0.39)-1.395**(0.57)
0.531(1.72)
0.011(0.06)
0.011(0.15)-0.152(1.27)-0.097(1.60)-0.601(1.83)-0.214(1.85)-0.567(1.82)-0.182(1.61)-0.89(1.26)
YES
801

0.028
(0.06)
Population-0.054(0.15)
War-0.198(1.24)
War(-1)-0.106(1.57)
War(-2)-0.671(1.79)
War(-3)-0.237(1.81)
War(-4)-0.6(1.78)
War(-5)-0.21(1.57)
War(-6)-0.914(1.23)
Year Dummies
YES
Observations
801
R-squared
0.42* significant at 10%; ** significant at 5%; *** significant at 1%

42

Table 3: The Effects of Monetary Standards on Japanese Exports, 1877-1912
Independent Variables
SilverGold
Silver*Gold
Gold*Silver
MFN2

Fixed Effects
2.891***(0.65)
0.776(0.52)
1.440***(0.47)
2.079***(0.66)
0.407(0.37)

Distance
Landlocked
Railroad

0.168**(0.08)
Population-0.832***(0.21)
War-2.720*(1.63)
War(-1)0.921(2.06)
War(-2)-1.581(2.34)
War(-3)0.203(2.37)
War(-4)-1.254(2.33)
War(-5)-0.113(2.06)
War(-6)-1.244(1.62)
Year Dummies
YES
Observations
790
R-squared
0.42* significant at 10%; ** significant at 5%; *** significant at 1%

43

Random Effects
2.838***(0.65)
0.938*(0.51)
1.586***(0.47)
2.054***(0.65)
0.345(0.37)-2.053**(0.87)-0.793(2.66)
0.138*(0.08)-0.706***(0.20)-2.647(1.65)
0.937(2.09)-1.491(2.37)
0.243(2.41)-1.193(2.36)-0.063(2.09)-1.218(1.64)
YES
790

44

0

100

200

300

400

500

600

700

3-May-81

3-May-79

3-May-77

3-May-75

Source: Economist

3-May-93

3-May-91

3-May-89

Weekly Intervals

3-May-03

3-May-01

Russo-Japanese War

Japan joins gold standard

3-May-05

800

3-May-07

900

Figure 1
Japanese Interest Rates on the London Market, May 1873-July 1910
(Basis Points)

3-May-09

3-May-99

3-May-97

3-May-95

3-May-87

3-May-85

3-May-83

3-May-73

Japan 5%

Japan (1873) 7%

45
300

350

400

450

500

550

600

1896/1
1896/4
1896/7
1896/101897/1
1897/4
1897/7
1897/10Monthly Intervals

Figure 2
5% Consolidated Loan in London and Tokyo, 1896-1902(Basis Points)

1898/1
1898/4
1898/7
1898/101899/1
1899/4
1899/7
1899/10
Japan joins gold standard

1900/1
1900/4
1900/7
1900/101901/1
1901/4
1901/7
1901/101902/1
1902/4
1902/7
1902/10Tokyo
London

46
0

100

200

300

400

500

600

700

1887/3
1888/1
1888/11
1889/91890/7
1891/51892/3
1893/1
1893/11

Japan joins gold standard

Monthly Intervals

Figure 3
Domestic Japanese Interest Rates, March 1887- June 1910
(Basis Points)

1894/91895/7
1896/5
1897/3
1898/1
1898/11
1899/91900/7
1901/5
1902/3
1903/1
1903/11
1904/91905/7
1906/51907/3
1908/1
1908/11
1909/9Consolidated Loan 5%
War Loan 5%

47
0

50

100

150

200

250

300

350

400

1887/3
1888/1
1888/11
1889/91890/7
1891/51892/3
1893/1
1893/11

Japan joins gold standard

Monthly Intervals

Figure 4
Domestic Japanese Yield Spreads March 1887-June 1910
(Basis Points)

1894/91895/7
1896/5
1897/3
1898/1
1898/11
1899/91900/7
1901/5
1902/3
1903/1
1903/11
1904/91905/7
1906/51907/3
1908/1
1908/11
1909/9Consolidated Loan 5%
War Loan 5%

48
0

20

40

60

80

100

120

140

160

1895/1
1895/3
1895/5
1895/7
1895/91895/11
1896/1
1896/3
1896/5Monthly Intervals

Figure 5
Japanese Stock Market Index, 1895-1899(January 1895=100)

1896/7
1896/91896/11
1897/1
1897/3
1897/5
1897/7
1897/91897/11
Japan joins gold standard

1898/1
1898/3
1898/5
1898/7
1898/91898/11
1899/1
1899/3
1899/5
1899/7
1899/91899/11

49
Index Value (Jan. 1895=100)
0

20

40

60

80

100

120

140

160

180

1895/1
1895/3
1895/5
1895/7
1895/91895/11
1896/1
1896/3
1896/5Monthly Intervals

Figure 6
Japanese Stock Market Index, 1895-1899

1896/7
1896/91896/11
1897/1
1897/3
1897/5
1897/7
1897/91897/11
Japan joins gold standard

1898/1
1898/3
1898/5
1898/7
1898/91898/11
1899/1
1899/3
1899/5
1899/7
1899/91899/11

50-3.346

Intercept and Trend-3.199Intercept and Trend275-3.074

Trend

Observations-3.024275

1907/1

1907/1

1894/6175-4.741-3.685-2.574

Minimum T-test

Minimum T-test

175-3.884-3.356-2.511Minimum T-test

War Loan
Break Date

275

1906/121907/1

1897/6

Break Date

War Loan

Consolidated Loan

Intercept

Break Test

Panel A: Yield Spreads* significant at 10%; ** significant at 5%; *** significant at 1%275-2.933

Trend

Observations-2.665

Minimum T-test

Consolidated Loan

Intercept

Break Test

Panel A: Interest Rates

Statistical Appendix: Zivot-Andrews Structural Break Tests, 1887-1910

175

1907/121908/3

1895/12

Break Date

175

1907/121908/3

1897/6

Break Date