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Explorations in Economic History 60 (2016) 52 – 68
www.elsevier.com/locate/eeh

Impact of natural disasters on industrial

agglomeration: The case of the Great
Kantō Earthquake in 1923
Asuka Imaizumia , Kaori Itob , Tetsuji Okazakic,⁎
a
Graduate School of Humanities and Social Sciences, Saitama University, Saitama 338-8570, Japan
b
Department of Architecture, Faculty of Science and Technology, Tokyo University of Science, Chiba 278-8510, Japan
c
Graduate School of Economics, The University of Tokyo, Tokyo 113-0033, Japan

Received 21 February 2012

Available online 15 December 2015

Abstract

The Great Kantō Earthquake in 1923 did enormous damage to industries in Tokyo Prefecture. Around 40% of the buildings in
Tokyo Prefecture were completely burnt or destroyed. In this paper, we investigate whether this temporary shock had a persistent
impact on the spatial distribution of industries in Tokyo, using ward- and county-level panel data for industrial workers. It was
found that while the earthquake caused mean shifts in the shares and numbers of workers, these mean shifts disappeared by the early
1930s. On the other hand, the earthquake caused shifts in the trends in the share and number of workers. The combined effects of
these mean shifts and trend shifts were persistent for both the shares and the numbers of workers. The earthquake caused especially
serious damage to the old industrial clusters in the southeast of Tokyo, and provided an opportunity for newly developing industrial
clusters in non-damaged areas to take over the market. Further, the people and the local governments in non-damaged areas made an
effort to take advantage of this opportunity to attract factories. Arguably, these forces made the impact of the earthquake on the
spatial distribution of industry persistent.
© 2015 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Keywords: Industrial agglomeration; Economic geography; Natural disaster; Economic history; Japan
JEL classification: R11; R12; N95

1. Introduction worst natural disaster in the history of Japan. This disaster

This paper investigates the impact of a large natural
disaster on the spatial distribution of industries, focusing
on the Great Kantō Earthquake that hit the areas around
Tokyo in 1923. The Great Kantō Earthquake, in which
more than one hundred thousand people died, was the
⁎ Corresponding author.
E-mail address: okazaki@e.u-tokyo.ac.jp (T. Okazaki).
also caused enormous damage to industries in certain
areas in Tokyo, at least temporarily. We focus on how
persistent the impact of the earthquake was.
This paper is related to the broad literature on the
persistence of impacts of historical events. The
possibility of path dependence has been widely
accepted by economic historians and economists since
the influential work of David (1985). Further, a number
of models with multiple equilibria provide a theoretical

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.eeh.2015.11.005
0014-4983/© 2015 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
 A. Imaizumi et al. / Explorations in Economic History 60 (2016) 52–68
basis for the possibility of path dependence (Nunn
2014). These models include those in spatial economics
(Krugman 1991; Fujita et al. 1999). It is remarkable that
formal empirical tests on multiple equilibria and path
dependence have been conducted on spatial issues. One
of the reasons for this is that there are appropriate
opportunities for natural experiments. Those studies
include Davis and Weinstein (2002, 2008), Brakman
et al. (2004), Miguel and Roland (2006), Bosker et al.
(2007), Redding and Strum (2008), and Redding et al.
(2011). The results of these studies on multiple
equilibria and path dependence are mixed. That is,
whereas Davis and Weinstein (2002, 2008), Brakman
et al. (2004), and Miguel and Roland (2006) did not
find evidence supporting the persistence of temporary
shocks, Bosker et al. (2007), Redding and Strum
(2008), and Redding, et al. (2011) found supportive
evidence.
This paper aims to contribute to this strand of literature
in two ways. First, the focus is on the effects of a
temporary shock caused by a natural disaster rather than
by a war or a political event. The damage caused by the
earthquake was exogenous, and, as shown below, the
shock provided by the Great Kantō Earthquake was
extremely large. Second, ward- and county-level data
from Tokyo Prefecture are used. Previous studies that
focused on temporary shocks rejected the possibility of a
long-run impact of a temporary shock, based on nation-
wide, city-level, or district-level data. However, even if
the nationwide spatial distribution of the population and
economic activities is determined by the fundamental
conditions and, hence, a temporary shock has no long-run
impact, it is possible that a temporary shock has a
long-run impact within a more limited area. In such a
case, the variations in fundamental conditions, such as
proximity to the coast and river, are supposed to be
smaller; hence, the existing equilibrium of spatial dis-
tribution of economic activities within the area is less
stable. In addition, the case of the Great Kantō
Earthquake is useful in identifying the shift in equilibri-
um, because not only did those fundamental natural
conditions not change due to the earthquake, but the
physical infrastructure, including public transportation,
also recovered swiftly after the earthquake.1
1
Railways were seriously damaged by the earthquake, but by
October 1923, most of the major railway lines had been reconstructed
by the activities of the engineer brigade (Social Affairs Bureau,
Ministry of Home Affairs, 1926, pp. 439–441). Yokohama Port, the
largest international port in Japan at the time, had also been
reconstructed by 1925 (Society for Research on the Recovery, 1930,
p. 2123).
53
In the context of Japanese economic history, the period
that includes the Great Kantō Earthquake was the period
when the spatial distribution of industries in the Tokyo
metropolitan area changed substantially, as shown below.
In this period, new industrial clusters developed rapidly in
some counties, including Ebara County, which came to be
the largest cluster of the machinery industry in Japan.
Investigating the impact of the Great Kantō Earthquake
on the spatial distribution of industries contributes to
understanding the spatial aspects of the development
of the Japanese economy (Whittaker 1997, pp. 63–6;
Kantō Bureau of International Trade and Industry 1996,
pp. 137–8).
The remainder of the paper is organized as follows.
Section 2 describes the damage caused by the Great
Kantō Earthquake, and the subsequent reconstruction
plan. Section 3 describes the changes seen over time in
the spatial of industries in Tokyo Prefecture and
econometrically analyzes the long-run impact of the
earthquake. Section 4 discusses the descriptive and
anecdotal evidence on the impact of the earthquake.
Section 5 concludes the paper.
2. The Great Kantō Earthquake and reconstruction
At 11:58 am on September 1, 1923, a huge
earthquake with a magnitude of M 7.9 hit the southern
area of the Kantō district in Japan. This earthquake, the
Great Kantō Earthquake, was the worst natural disaster
in the history of Japan. The damage extended over
seven prefectures, Tokyo, Kanagawa, Saitama, Chiba,
Ibaraki, Shizuoka, and Yamanashi. The total number of
deaths and missing persons was more than 100,000,2
which was 16.3 times larger than the losses from the
1995 Kobe Earthquake and 5.4 times larger than those
from the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake.3 In
addition, more than 460,000 buildings were completely
burnt or destroyed.4 The human and physical damage
was concentrated in the prefectures of Tokyo and
Kanagawa (see Table 1 and Figs. 1 and 2). The main
reason why the damage was so serious was the
2
The number of deaths and missing persons include those who died
from the earthquake itself and those who died from the fire caused by
the earthquake.
3
The losses from the 1995 Kobe Earthquake and the 2011 Great
East Japan Earthquake were 6,437 and 19,386, respectively (see the
Web page of the Fire and Disaster Management Agency, http://www.
fdma.go.jp/data/010604191452374961.pdf, and the Web page of the
National Police Agency, http://www.npa.go.jp/archive/keibi/biki/
higaijokyo.pdf).
4
“Destroyed” means “directly destroyed by the quake,” while
“burnt” means “burnt by the fire caused by the earthquake.”
54 A. Imaizumi et al. / Explorations in Economic History 60 (2016) 52–68

Table 1 million US$ in 2010 prices, which is 84% of the value

Human damage by the Great Kantō Earthquake. of the damage from the 1995 Kobe Earthquake and 41%
Person, % of that from the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake.7
Prefecture Population Death Missing Total Ratio However, in terms of percentage of GNP (GDP), the
just to the damage caused by the Great Kantō Earthquake was far
before the population greater than the damage caused by the two more recent
earthquake
earthquakes. That is, while the ratio of the value of the
Total 11,743,100 91,344 13,275 104,619 0.89 1995 Kobe Earthquake damage and the 2011 Great East
Tokyo 4,035,700 59,593 10,904 70,497 1.75
Japan Earthquake damage to GDP in the preceding
Tokyo City 2,265,300 58,104 10,556 68,660 3.03
The other area 1,770,400 1,489 348 1,837 0.10 years (1994 and 2010) was 2.1% and 3.5%, respective-
Kanagawa 1,379,000 29,614 2,245 31,859 2.31 ly, the ratio of the value of the Great Kantō Earthquake
Yokohama City 446,600 21,384 1,951 23,335 5.23 damage to GNP in 1922 was 35.4%.8
The other area 932,400 8,230 294 8,524 0.91 We can also compare the magnitude of the damage
Chiba 1,347,200 1,373 47 1,420 0.11
from the Great Kantō Earthquake with that from World
Saitama 1,353,800 280 36 316 0.02
Shizuoka 1,626,300 450 42 492 0.03 War II, on which Davis and Weinstein (2002, 2008)
Yamanashi 602,000 20 0 20 0.00 focused. According to the estimation by the Economic
Ibaraki 1,399,100 14 1 15 0.00 Stabilization Board (1949), the total value of physical
Source: Tokyo City Government (1925), pp. 160–3. damage was 4,245 billion yen in 1948 prices,9 which is
equivalent to 423 billion dollars in 2010 prices. The
ratio of the value of war damage to GNP in 1940 is
108.5%,10 which is around three times larger than that
widespread fire caused by the earthquake. While the fire of the Great Kantō Earthquake. However, the damage
itself generated strong winds, the destruction of the from the Great Kantō Earthquake was concentrated in
water supply system caused by the earthquake severely Tokyo Prefecture and Kanagawa Prefecture. Indeed, the
impeded the firefighting capability, which, in turn, ratio for Tokyo Prefecture in terms of buildings
resulted in tremendous fire damage (Tokyo City completely burnt or destroyed by the earthquake was
Government, 1932, p. 28). 39.8%, while the equivalent ratio for World War II was
It is notable that within Tokyo Prefecture there was 31.4% (Table 2, Economic Stabilization Board, 1949,
substantial variation in the damage. At that time, Tokyo p. 344). In this sense, with respect to Tokyo Prefecture,
Prefecture was composed of Tokyo City and eight the damage from the Great Kantō Earthquake exceeded
counties.5 Tokyo City itself was composed of 15 wards. that from World War II.
Fig. 2 indicates the ratio of the number of buildings Just after the Great Kantō Earthquake, the govern-
completely burnt or destroyed to the total number of ment began to draw up a reconstruction plan. A new
buildings just before the earthquake, by city and county government agency that was to be in charge of the plan,
in Tokyo Prefecture. As can be seen, the damage was the Agency of Imperial Capital Reconstruction (Teito
concentrated in Tokyo City, in the southeast part of Fukkō-in), was established in September 1923. How-
Tokyo Prefecture. Of the 15 wards of Tokyo City, the ever, because of pressure from the Imperial Diet to
six wards6 that were located in the eastern part of the reduce expenditures, the government's draft plan was
city were most seriously damaged; the ratios of curtailed, and the Agency of Imperial Capital Recon-
completely destroyed or burnt buildings were higher struction was abolished in 1924. It was succeeded by
than 80% (Fig. 3).
7
The Tokyo City Government estimated the total To convert 1923 values to 1995 values, we used a series of
amount of physical damage in the seven prefectures. deflators linking the GNP (GDP) deflators of Ohkawa et al. (1974),
According to their estimation, a large part of the damage the Economic Planning Agency (1965), and the Economic Planning
Agency (2001).
consisted of commodities, buildings, and household 8
Nominal GNP in 1922 was 15,573 million yen (Ohkawa et al.
goods. The total value of the damage was 78,800 1974).
9
The original Japanese name of the Economic Stabilization Board
(1949) was Keizai Antei Honbu. Although Davis and Weinstein
5
In addition, there was a small city, Hachiōji City, as well as (2002) refer to it as the “Central Economic Stabilization Board,” here
islands. In 1932, Tokyo City merged five counties and reorganized we use the official English name.
10
them into twenty new wards. The value of war damage in 1940 prices was 42.76 billion yen,
6
These wards were Kanda, Nihonbashi, Kyōbashi, Asakusa, Honjo, while the nominal GNP in 1940 was 39.40 billion yen (Economic
and Fukagawa. Planning Agency, 1965, 2001).
 A. Imaizumi et al. / Explorations in Economic History 60 (2016) 52–68 55

Fig. 1. Title: Map of Japan.

the Bureau of Reconstruction, which was newly
established in the Ministry of Home Affairs. The
Bureau of Reconstruction implemented the reconstruc-
tion plan, including land readjustment, construction of
streets, and layout of parks (Tokyo City Government,
1932, p. 169).
A distinctive feature of the reconstruction plan was
that it was drawn up as part of the city plan. The City
Planning Law and the City Area Architecture Law
had already been legislated in 1919 (Ishida, 1987,
pp. 114–43; Koshizawa, 1991, pp. 13–23), and, in
accordance with these two laws, the government had
prepared a city plan for Tokyo before the earthquake,
but it was not implemented. This city plan was then
incorporated in the reconstruction plan (Takebe, 1925,
pp. 44–45; Tokyo City Government, 1925, p. 94).
The city plan included zoning regulations.11 The
City Area Architecture Law prescribed three categories
of zones: the residential zone, the commercial zone, and
the industrial zone. With respect to factories, the
following regulations were imposed in these zones.
The regulations were revised in 1926, 1929 and 1935.
The regulations after 1929 revision were as follows. In a
residential zone, factories using motors over 3 horse-
power (hp) were prohibited, whereas in a commercial
zone, those using motors over 15 hp were prohibited. In
addition, a factory was prohibited in both residential
and commercial zones if it was dangerous or caused
inconvenience, such as where there was a risk of an
11
This was the first time that zoning was implemented in Tokyo
City.
56 A. Imaizumi et al. / Explorations in Economic History 60 (2016) 52–68

Fig. 2. Title: Damage to buildings in 7 prefectures. Source: Tokyo City Government (1925), p. 161.

explosion, discharge of harmful or pungent gases or
liquids, or where significant amounts of dust, noise or
vibrations were generated. Factories using motors over
50 hp or that presented one of the above hazards were
only allowed in the industrial zone. Besides these three
zones, there was also a “zone not yet specified.” In this
zone, a factory using motors of 50 hp or less was
allowed (Yano, 1932, pp. 40–172; Horiuchi 1978,
pp. 56–70; Numajiri 2002, p. 64). The zoning as of
1936 is shown in Fig. 4.

Fig. 3. Title: Damage to buildings by ward and county in Tokyo Prefecture. Source: Social Affairs Bureau of the Ministry of Home Affairs (1924);
Statistical Yearbook of Tokyo Prefecture, 1923 issue.
 A. Imaizumi et al. / Explorations in Economic History 60 (2016) 52–68 57

Table 2
Magnitude of physical damage: Comparison with recent earthquakes.
Event year Total damage GDP (GNP) in previous years Percentage to
(2010 price, million dollars) (2010 price, million dollars) GDP (GNP)
Great Kantō Earthquake 1923 78,800 221,894 35.5
Kobe Earthquake 1995 93,661 4,765,497 2.0
Great East Japan Earthquake 2011 192,549 5,459,451 3.5
Source: Tokyo City Government (1925) p. 161; the webpage of Kobe News Paper (http://www.kobe-np.co.jp/sinsai/kiroku/higai0012.html); the
webpage of the Cabinet Office (http://www.bousai.go.jp/oshirase/h23/110624-1kisya.pdf).
Note: To convert the 1923 values to 1995 values, we used a series of deflators, linking the GNP (GDP) deflators of Ohkawa et al.(1974), the
Economic Planning Agency (1965, 2001).

It is notable that the regulations were exempted to
existing factories unless they were extended or recon-
structed. In addition, enforcement of the regulations on
extension and reconstruction of existing factories was
suspended until 1936 (Imaizumi 2010, pp. 35–7). Hence,
until 1936, zoning regulations were imposed only on
construction of new factories. In this sense, zoning
regulations were not so strict. This implies that there was
room for economic mechanisms to work in determining
spatial distribution of industries, but in evaluating the
long-run impact of an earthquake on industrial growth, the
effects of zoning should be taken into account.
3. Evaluating the impact of the earthquake on the
spatial distribution of industries
We now focus on the impact of the earthquake on
industries within Tokyo Prefecture. Table 3 details the
changes over time in the distribution of industries and
indicates the shares of industrial workers in the 15
wards of Tokyo City compared with the total numbers
of industrial workers in Tokyo Prefecture, and for the
five neighboring counties, which were merged into
Tokyo City in 1932.
First, it can be seen just how large the temporary
shock of the Great Kantō Earthquake was, in that the
total number of workers declined by 35% from 1922 to
1923. Second, the shock varied substantially across
wards and counties. Table 3 arranges the wards and
counties (areas, hereafter) by the ratio of completely
burnt or destroyed buildings, and divides the areas into
two groups, “damaged” and “non-damaged.” The data
on the damage to buildings are taken from Tokyo City
Government (1925). The ratios of completely burnt or
destroyed buildings were higher in the southeast
downtown areas Nihonbashi, Asakusa, Fukagawa,

Fig. 4. Title: Zoning in Tokyo Prefecture (1936). Source: City Planning Office, Bureau of Audit, Tokyo City Government Tokyo Toshi-keikaku
Chiiki-zu (City Planning Zoning Map of Tokyo), 1936.
58 A. Imaizumi et al. / Explorations in Economic History 60 (2016) 52–68

Table 3
Earthquake damage and change in the spatial distribution of industry.
Ratio of completely burnt Number of workers Worker share (%)
or destroyed buildings
1922 1923 1936 1922 1923 1936
Total 0.203 183,521 119,012 376,718 100.00 100.00 100.00
Damaged Average 0.756 8,581 2,636 11,525 4.68 2.21 3.06
Nihonbashi Ward 0.932 2,075 552 3,105 1.13 0.46 0.82
Asakusa Ward 0.930 3,471 866 9,486 1.89 0.73 2.52
Fukagawa Ward 0.927 13,525 2,176 12,670 7.37 1.83 3.36
Honjo Ward 0.923 23,206 7,613 31,582 12.64 6.40 8.38
Kyōbashi Ward 0.919 13,914 2,154 12,810 7.58 1.81 3.40
Kanda Ward 0.894 5,984 1,435 7,676 3.26 1.21 2.04
Shitaya Ward 0.744 3,227 1,827 6,564 1.76 1.54 1.74
iKōjimachi Ward 0.589 2,335 1,671 4,008 1.27 1.40 1.06
Shiba Ward 0.444 15,684 6,456 23,955 8.55 5.42 6.36
Hongō Ward 0.262 2,388 1,611 3,397 1.30 1.35 0.90
Non-damaged Average 0.077 9,771 9,265 26,147 5.32 7.79 6.94
Akasaka Ward 0.189 421 568 844 0.23 0.48 0.22
Minami Katsushika County 0.146 36,608 32,827 72,418 19.95 27.58 19.22
Kitatoshima County 0.131 25,205 24,085 59,885 13.73 20.24 15.90
Minami Adachi County 0.096 1,693 1,610 10,778 0.92 1.35 2.86
Koishikawa Ward 0.051 6,300 6,835 6,641 3.43 5.74 1.76
Yotsuya Ward 0.048 675 834 934 0.37 0.70 0.25
Azabu Ward 0.047 2,567 2,486 4,019 1.40 2.09 1.07
Ebara County 0.027 15,284 15,205 83,059 8.33 12.78 22.05
Ushigome Ward 0.020 2,838 3,216 4,668 1.55 2.70 1.24
Toyotama County 0.011 6,121 4,985 18,219 3.34 4.19 4.84
Source: Tokyo City Government, Statistical Yearbook of Tokyo City, 1924 issue and 1925 issue; Tokyo City Government, Statistical Yearbook of
Industries in Tokyo City, 1938 issue.
Note: The areas in bold indicate that the shares of the areas declined from 1922 to 1923 and the areas did not recover half of the share decline by
1936.

Honjo, Kyōbashi, and Kanda. Among them, four areas,
Fukagawa, Honjo, Kyōbashi, and Kanda, were the areas
where industries were most densely agglomerated
before the earthquake. However, they lost more than
50% of their shares of industrial workers.
On the other hand, some counties were not seriously
damaged, and, furthermore, increased their shares of
industrial workers. In this sense, the earthquake changed
the spatial distribution of industries in Tokyo Prefecture,
at least temporarily. Finally, it is notable that at least some
of this change seems to have been persistent. In the four
wards that were seriously damaged, more than half of the
decline in the shares of industrial workers from 1922 to
1923 persisted until 1936, even though the Japanese
economy had passed through the Great Depression and
the rapid growth of the 1930s.12 Fig. 5 illustrates the
12
Concerning the macroeconomy in Japan in this period, see
Nakamura (1983) and Cha (2003).
impact of the earthquake on industrial development in
Tokyo Prefecture. Classifications of the damaged and
non-damaged areas are the same as in Table 3. The
numbers of industrial workers in the damaged areas
declined sharply in 1923, whereas even though the
number of workers gradually recovered, even by the
middle of the 1930s, it was still around the same level
as it was in 1922. On the other hand, in the
non-damaged areas, the number of workers declined
just slightly in 1923, and then the trend of steady
growth continued.
These observations seem to suggest that the Great
Kantō Earthquake had a persistent impact on the spatial
distribution of industries within Tokyo Prefecture.
However, we should exercise caution because the
observations in Table 3 and Fig. 5 reflect the impact
of other factors in addition to the earthquake, including
the long-term trend in shares of workers in all areas. In
fact, the areas that were seriously damaged by the
earthquake had several attributes that were different
from those of the areas that were not so seriously
 A. Imaizumi et al. / Explorations in Economic History 60 (2016) 52–68
Fig. 5. Title: Growth of industrial workers in damaged and non-damaged areas. Source: See Table 3.
damaged. This can be seen in Table 4, which compares
the attributes of damaged and non-damaged areas.
While the average plant density, i.e. the number of
plants per square kilometer, in the damaged areas was
151.6 in 1922, that in the non-damaged areas was 42.4
in the same year. At the same time, while the average
worker density, i.e. the number of industrial workers per
square kilometer, in the damaged areas was 1443, it was
330 in the non-damaged areas. Finally, the growth rates
of the numbers of plants and the numbers of workers
were larger in the non-damaged areas in the period
before the earthquake (1914–1922). In sum, the
damaged areas were relatively established industrial
areas, but the non-damaged areas were newly industri-
alizing areas. This is important to note when evaluating
the persistence of the impact of the earthquake, because
at least a part of the changes in the spatial distribution of
industries can be seen to reflect the difference in the
long-run industrialization trends between the damaged
areas and the non-damaged areas.
We examine the persistence of the impact of the
earthquake by regression analyses based on the ward-
and county-level panel data on industrial workers in
Tokyo Prefecture. The data points are for the 13 years
1915, 1921, 1922, 1923, 1924, 1929, 1930, 1931, 1932,
1933, 1934, 1935, and 1936, and the number of areas is
20 (15 wards and five counties). Thus, we have 260
(13 × 20) area–year observations. The data for the
years 1921–24 were obtained from various issues of the
59
Statistical Yearbook of Tokyo City (Tokyo-shi Tōkei
Hyō). Because the 1915 issue of this yearbook does not
contain the data on industrial workers by county, we
used data taken from the 1914 issue of Manufacturing
Statistics of Tokyo Prefecture (Tokyo-fu Kōjō Tōkei)
for 1915. The data for 1929–36 were obtained from
Statistical Yearbook of Tokyo Prefecture (Tokyo-fu
Tōkei Sho). The data for 1925–28 were not available.
These data cover all the factories employing five or
more workers, and the factories employing less than
five workers but using motors.
The baseline equations to be estimated are:
WSHAREit ¼ α þ β t NBROKENi  YEARt  AFTERt
þ γNBROKENi  TIMEAFTERt ð1Þ
þ δ1 AREIi þ δ2 ARECi þ ζi þ εit
LNWORKERit ¼ α þ β t NBROKENi  YEARt  AFTERt
þ γNBROKENi  TIMEAFTERt
ð2Þ
þ ηTIMEt þ δ1 AREIi þ δ2 ARECi
þ ζi þ εit
With respect to Eq. (1), the dependent variable,
WSHAREit, is the share of industrial workers in area i
in year t; NBROKENi is the ratio of completely
destroyed or burnt buildings in area i, normalized to
have a mean of zero and a standard deviation of one;
YEARt is the year dummy; and AFTERt is the dummy
60 A. Imaizumi et al. / Explorations in Economic History 60 (2016) 52–68

Table 4
Comparison of basic attributes of “damaged” and “non-damaged” areas.
Area Number Plant density, 1922 Worker density, 1922 Annual growth rate Annual growth rate
(km2) of plants, (number of plants (number of industrial of plant number, of worker number,
1922 per km2) workers per km2) 1914–22 (%) 1914–22 (%)
Damaged Average 5.8 808 151.6 1,443 16.4 6.7
Nihonbashi Ward 3.1 280 89.9 666 6.8 0.2
Asakusa Ward 5.3 948 179.7 658 16.5 4.0
Fukagawa Ward 8.2 1,226 148.9 1,643 20.7 5.6
Honjo Ward 6.5 1,250 192.5 3,575 7.7 5.8
Kyōbashi Ward 5.1 1,015 198.9 2,726 16.0 6.0
Kanda Ward 3.1 1,098 354.2 1,930 20.1 10.7
Shitaya Ward 5.0 511 101.3 640 12.7 4.1
Kojimachi Ward 8.4 174 20.8 279 28.8 12.9
Shiba Ward 8.6 1,066 123.9 1,823 18.7 9.2
Hongō Ward 4.9 514 105.5 490 16.5 8.2
Non-damaged Average 49.2 372 42.4 330 25.7 10.8
Akasaka Ward 4.3 168 39.1 98 34.2 13.9
Minami Katushika County 100.5 499 5.0 364 13.1 10.3
Kitatoshima County 125.5 534 4.3 201 13.8 8.7
Minami Adachi County 53.5 168 3.1 32 22.6 2.7
Koishikawa Ward 6.1 709 117.0 1,040 32.6 9.1
Yotsuya Ward 3.2 176 54.4 208 39.9 13.1
Azabu Ward 4.3 465 108.5 599 37.7 10.7
Ebara County 114.7 377 3.3 133 11.5 11.8
Ushigome Ward 5.2 454 87.1 545 38.3 9.0
Toyotama County 74.8 165 2.2 82 13.2 18.6
Source: Tokyo City Government, Statistical Yearbook of Tokyo City, 1922 issue; Tokyo Prefecture Government (1916).

variable, which equals 1 if the year is 1923 or later.
Thus, the interaction term NBROKENi  YEARt  AFTE
Rt represents the mean shift of worker share of area i
in year t caused by the earthquake. By interacting
NBROKENi with YEARt  AFTERt , we can evaluate
the change over time in the mean shift of the share of
workers. Another measure of persistence of the earth-
quake impact is NBROKENi  TIMEAFTERt , where
TIMEAFTERt is the time trend at the time of and after
the earthquake (0 for 1923 and 13 for 1936). This
interaction term represents the shift in the trend of the
share of workers caused by the earthquake. The variable
AREIi is the ratio of the industrial zone to the total area
in area i, whereas the variable ARECi is the ratio of the
commercial area to the total area in area i.13 These
variables are introduced to control for the effects of the
zoning regulation. We also introduce an area fixed
effect, ζi, to capture the area-specific worker shares. The
last term, εit, is the random error. By this specification,
we intend to evaluate the time-varying mean shift as
13
For the years before 1925, when the zoning was implemented,
AREAI and AREAC equal to zero.
well as the trend shift of the share of workers, caused by
the earthquake.
With respect to Eq. (2), the dependent variable,
LNWORKERit, is the log of the number of industrial
workers in area i in year t. As an explanatory variable in
Eq. (2), we add the time trend, TIMEt, to control for the
overall upward trend in the number of industrial
workers in Tokyo Prefecture.
The summary statistics are reported in Table 5 and
the results are reported in Table 6. Column (1) in
Table 6 indicates that the earthquake had a substantial
negative impact on the shares of workers in various
areas. That is, a one standard deviation increase in
the ratio of completely burnt or destroyed buildings
reduced the share of workers by 2.79% points in 1923.
At the same time, it is remarkable that the mean shift
captured by the variable NBROKENi  YEARt  AFTE
Rt was temporal. For 1924, the coefficient is 1.35%,
and for 1929 and the following years the coefficient
was not significantly different from zero. On the
other hand, there was a significant negative trend shift
after the earthquake. That is, the coefficient of
NBROKENi  TIMEAFTERt is negative and statistical-
ly significant. This result implies that a one standard
deviation increase in the ratio of completely burnt or
 A. Imaizumi et al. / Explorations in Economic History 60 (2016) 52–68 61

Table 5
Basic statistics.
Obs. Mean Stdev. Min. Max.
WSHARE 260 0.050 0.006 0.001 0.277
LEORKER 260 8.455 1.254 4.860 11.228
NBROKEN 260 0.000 1.000 − 1.066 1.357
NBROKEN*TIMEAFTER 260 0.000 7.671 − 13.864 17.639
NPLANTDENSITY22 260 0.000 1.000 − 1.087 2.951
NPLANTDENSITY22*TIME 260 0.268 14.736 − 23.922 64.979
AREAI 260 0.010 0.226 0.000 0.826
AREAC 260 0.152 0.286 0.000 1.000

destroyed buildings would reduce the slope of the share
of workers by 0.18% points. Thus, the earthquake had a
persistent negative impact on the share of workers in the
sense that it caused a negative change in the trend.
A concern regarding this interpretation is that because
the seriously damaged areas were relatively industrialized
before the earthquake, the trend shift in the estimation
result for Eq. (1) reflects the saturation of industrialization
in those areas. To address this concern, we added the
explanatory variable NPLANTDENSITY1922i  TIMEt ,
where NPLANTDENSITY1922i is the plant density in the
area in 1922, normalized to have a mean of zero and a
standard deviation of one. Thus, the interaction term of
plant density with the time variable represents the trend in
the share of workers that was dependent on the plant
density just before the earthquake. As shown in column (2)
of Table 6, the coefficient of this variable is negative and
statistically significant, which implies that those areas that

Table 6
Persistence of the impact of the earthquake: Industry total.
(1) (2) (3) (4)
Dependent variable WSHARE WSHARE LNWORKER LNWORKER
NBROKEN*1923 − 0.0279 (− 7.18) ⁎⁎⁎ − 0.0260 (− 6.82) ⁎⁎⁎ − 0.6616 (− 10.09) ⁎⁎⁎ − 0.6175 (9.90) ⁎⁎⁎
NBROKEN*1924 − 0.0135 (− 3.54) ⁎⁎⁎ − 0.0118 (− 3.14) ⁎⁎⁎ − 0.2787 (− 4.31) ⁎⁎⁎ − 0.24043 (− 3.92) ⁎⁎⁎
NBROKEN*1929 − 0.0030 (− 0.76) − 0.0021 (− 0.54) − 0.1896 (− 2.62) ⁎⁎⁎ − 0.14867 (− 2.16) ⁎⁎
NBROKEN*1930 − 0.0004 (− 0.09) − 0.0004 (0.11) − 0.1453 (− 2.03) ⁎⁎ − 0.11019 (− 1.62)
NBROKEN*1931 0.0016 (0.39) − 0.0023 (0.57) − 0.0961 (− 1.34) − 0.06681 (− 0.99)
NBROKEN*1932 − 0.0008 (− 0.20) − 0.0003 (− 0.07) − 0.0858 (− 1.19) − 0.06259 (− 0.92)
NBROKEN*1933 − 0.0005 (− 0.11) − 0.0001 (− 0.02) − 0.0820 (− 1.12) − 0.06448 (− 0.93)
NBROKEN*1934 − 0.0002 (− 0.05) − 0.0001 (0.01) − 0.0587 (− 0.78) − 0.04696 (− 0.66)
NBROKEN*1935 0.0000 (− 0.00) 0.0001 (0.03) − 0.0231 (− 0.30) − 0.0173 (− 0.24)
NBROKEN*TIMEAFTER − 0.0018 (− 5.71) ⁎⁎⁎ − 0.0012 (− 3.29) ⁎⁎⁎ − 0.0345 (− 5.06) ⁎⁎⁎ − 0.0166 (− 2.29) ⁎⁎
TIME 0.0385 (6.96) ⁎⁎⁎
NPLANTDENSITY1922*TIME − 0.0008 (− 3.78) ⁎⁎⁎ − 0.0175 (− 5.27) ⁎⁎⁎
AREAI − 0.0065 (− 1.06) − 0.0110 (− 1.80) ⁎ 0.5519 (2.99) ⁎⁎⁎ 0.3456 (1.94) ⁎
AREAC − 0.0092 (1.60) 0.0108 (1.91) ⁎ 0.7503 (3.40) ⁎⁎⁎ 0.6519 (3.12) ⁎⁎⁎
Constant 0.0049 (34.30) ⁎⁎⁎ 0.0493 (35.29) ⁎⁎⁎ 7.81495 (136.27) ⁎⁎⁎ 7.81961 (146.30) ⁎⁎⁎
Ward fixed effect Yes Yes Yes Yes
Year fixed effect No No Yes Yes
R-sq within 0.2696 0.3128 0.6987 0.7332
Between 0.0056 0.0236 0.0071 0.0011
Overall 0.0200 0.0423 0.0782 0.0563
Obs. 260 260 260 260
Note: t-values are in parentheses.
⁎⁎⁎ Statistically significant at 1% level.
⁎⁎ Statistically significant at 5% level.
⁎ Statistically significant at 10% level.
62 A. Imaizumi et al. / Explorations in Economic History 60 (2016) 52–68

had already been industrialized had a lower trend in terms
of the share of workers. In addition, we confirm that the
coefficient of NBROKENi  TIMEAFTERt is negative and
statistically significant, although the magnitude decreased.
Column (3) of Table 6 reports the estimation
result for Eq. (2). The results are similar to those for
Eq. (1). We observe a large negative mean shift in
LNWORKER caused by the damage from the
earthquake. For 1923, the coefficient is − 0.6616,
which implies that a one standard deviation increase in
the ratio of completely burnt or destroyed buildings
would cause a 48.4% reduction in the number of
workers. Meanwhile, the magnitude of the negative
mean shifts decreased over time, whereas they were
relatively persistent in terms of share of workers. A
significant negative mean shift continued until 1930. On

Fig. 6. Title: Decomposition of the impact caused by one standard deviation of the earthquake. Source: See the text.
 A. Imaizumi et al. / Explorations in Economic History 60 (2016) 52–68
Fig. 6 (continued).
the other hand, the coefficient of NBROKENi 
TIMEAFTERt is negative and statistically significant.
That is, as in the case of share of workers, the damage by
the earthquake caused a downward trend shift in the
number of workers. In column (4), we added
NPLANTDENSITY1922i  TIMEt as an explanatory
variable to control for the trend in the numbers of workers
that were dependent on the plant density just before the
earthquake. In this case, the coefficient of NBROKENi 
TIMEAFTERt is also negative and statistically significant.
Thus, we conclude that the impact of the earthquake on
the number of workers was persistent in the sense that it
caused a downward trend shift. Concerning the zoning
variables, AREAI and AREAC, in the worker share
regressions their effects are not so clear, but in the worker
number regressions they have significantly positive
effects. This implies that those areas larger portion of
which was designated as industrial area or commercial
area tended to have more industrial workers, and in this
sense the zoning regulation in fact affected the spatial
distribution of industries.
Figs. 6 and 7 depict the results of columns (2) and (4)
of Table 6. Panel A of Fig. 6 shows the mean shift in
share of workers caused by a one standard deviation
increase in the ratio of completely burnt or destroyed
buildings, and Panel B of Fig. 6 shows the trend shift in
the share of workers. Combining the graphs in Panels A
and B produces the graph in Panel C. The same exercise
63
is conducted in Panels A–C of Fig. 7 in relation to
LNWORKER. In both Fig. 6 and Fig. 7, the downward
trend shifts made the combined effects persistently
negative, whereas the mean shifts almost disappeared
by the early 1930s.
The worker data at the ward and county levels are
also available by industry from the sources we used
for the analyses above. Industries are classified into
five categories, namely textiles, metals and machinery,
chemicals and ceramics, foods, and miscellaneous. Using
these data, we estimated the same regressions by industry.
That is, we estimated Eqs. (1) and (2) adding the variable
NPLANTDENSITY1922i  TIMEt . The results are re-
ported in Panels A and B of Table 7. With respect to the
regressions with WSHARE as the dependent variable
(Panel A), the magnitude and persistence of the mean
shift are similar to those for the industry total. The
immediate negative impact was 2–3% points in 1923, but
it diminished by about half in 1924, and the significant
negative mean shift had disappeared by 1929. On the other
hand, the results for the trend shift differ across industries.
While the coefficients of NBROKENi  TIMEAFTERt are
negative for all of the industries, they are statistically
significant in only three industries, namely metal and
machinery, chemical and ceramics, and miscellaneous.
With respect to the regressions with LNWORKER as
the dependent variable (Panel B), it is found that the
persistence of the mean shift is basically shorter than the
64 A. Imaizumi et al. / Explorations in Economic History 60 (2016) 52–68

result for the industry total, and that significant negative
trend shifts are observed for two industries, namely metal
and machinery, and miscellaneous.
4. Discussion
The statistical analyses in the previous section indicate
that although the mean shifts in the shares and the
numbers of workers caused by the Great Kantō
Earthquake were not persistent, it caused trend shifts in
the shares and numbers of workers at least for some
industries, and that in this sense the earthquake had a
persistent impact on the spatial distribution of industries
in Tokyo Prefecture. Here, we examine descriptive and
anecdotal evidence to check this result. With respect to
the transience of the mean shift, Imaizumi (2008)

Fig. 7. Title: Decomposition of the impact caused by one standard deviation of the earthquake. Source: See the text.
 A. Imaizumi et al. / Explorations in Economic History 60 (2016) 52–68
Fig. 7 (continued).
discusses the strength of the recovery in damaged areas.
In those areas, many of the factory owners whose
factories were burnt or destroyed tried to reconstruct
their factories at the original sites, which they owned.14 In
addition, they sometimes cooperated to achieve recovery
in clusters.15 For instance, just after the earthquake,
factory owners in Honjo and Fukagawa Wards created
the Association for the Industrial Recovery in Honjo and
Fukagawa Wards (Honjo Fukagawa Kogyo Fukkōkai),
which engaged in such activities as distribution of
materials to assist the recovery of industries in this area.
On the other hand, there is also anecdotal evidence that
is consistent with the trend shift caused by the earthquake.
In December 1923, one of the major newspapers
published an article entitled “Powerful development of
industries in Ebara County: taking over the position of
Honjo Ward.” In this article, the mayor of Ebara County
responded to the interviewer as follows16:
14
The role of property rights regarding assets in the stability of
spatial equilibrium is pointed out by Nunn (2014, p. 377). At the same
time, it is true that some factories moved out of the original areas after
the earthquake. For example, Hayakawa Electronics (Sharp Electron-
ics Co.) moved from Honjo to Osaka.
15
For discussion regarding cooperation in clusters, see Shmitz and
Nadvi (1999).
16
Tokyo Asahi Shinbun, 15 December 1923.
65
Ebara County now has 430 thousand people, because
110 thousand evacuators settled in Ebara County,
whose population had been 320 thousand. Three
hundred factories are actively operating here. The
Ebara Industrial Association has been discussing how
they can make enthusiastic efforts to take over
industries in Greater Tokyo, because many factories
in the southeastern part of Tokyo have burnt down and
are not recovering easily. The industries in Ebara
County have also been damaged, but they have been
recovering vigorously. There was only a short period
when there were unemployed workers here, and
recently factories have been recruiting large numbers
of workers. Although the county office planned to
mediate the transfer of vacant factories and factory
sites, there are no vacant factories, and appropriate
sites are being purchased immediately for the
construction of new factories.
It is stated that industries in Ebara County were
developing rapidly after the earthquake, and that delays in
recovery in the old industrial areas in southeast Tokyo had
boosted this development. In other words, the earthquake
damage in the old industrial areas provided an opportunity
for newly developing areas to take over the market
previously occupied by the old industrial clusters. At the
same time, this opportunity motivated the people and local
governments of non-damaged areas to attract factories
from other areas, including the damaged areas, as
66 A. Imaizumi et al. / Explorations in Economic History 60 (2016) 52–68

Table 7
Persistence of the impact of the earthquake: By industry.
A. Dependent variable: WSHARE
(1) Textile (2) Metal and (3) Chemical and (4) Foods (5) Miscellaneous
machinery ceramics
NBROKEN*1923 − 0.0178 (− 3.50) ⁎⁎⁎ − 0.029 (− 4.57) ⁎⁎⁎ − 0.0196 (− 4.17) ⁎⁎⁎ − 0.0309 (− 6.59) ⁎⁎⁎ − 0.0359 (− 6.60) ⁎⁎⁎
NBROKEN*1924 − 0.0161 (− 3.22) ⁎⁎⁎ − 0.012 (− 1.95) ⁎ − 0.0073 (− 1.59) − 0.0155 (− 3.38) ⁎⁎⁎ − 0.0155 (− 2.91) ⁎⁎⁎
NBROKEN*1929 − 0.0063 (− 1.24) − 0.001 (− 0.13) − 0.0094 (− 1.99) ⁎⁎ − 0.0021 (− 0.44) − 0.0035 (− 0.64)
NBROKEN*1930 − 0.0026 (− 0.50) 0.001 (0.22) − 0.0069 (− 1.44) 0.0002 (0.05) − 0.0032 (− 0.58)
NBROKEN*1931 − 0.0059 (− 0.11) 0.002 (0.34) − 0.0045 (− 0.91) 0.0039 (0.81) 0.0000 (− 0.00)
NBROKEN*1932 − 0.0013 (− 0.23) − 0.002 (− 0.24) − 0.0051 (− 1.03) 0.0027 (0.54) − 0.0033 (− 0.58)
NBROKEN*1933 − 0.0011 (− 0.20) − 0.001 (− 0.15) − 0.0032 (− 0.62) 0.0000 (− 0.01) − 0.0028 (− 0.47)
NBROKEN*1934 − 0.0010 (− 0.18) − 0.001 (− 0.09) − 0.0020 (− 0.38) − 0.0005 (− 0.09) − 0.0017 (− 0.28)
NBROKEN*1935 − 0.0004 (− 0.07) 0.000 (− 0.02) − 0.0010 (− 0.19) − 0.0012 (− 0.22) − 0.0006 (− 0.10)
NBROKEN*TIMEAFTER − 0.0006 (− 1.34) − 0.002 (− 3.25) ⁎⁎⁎ − 0.0015 (− 3.30) ⁎⁎⁎ − 0.0004 (− 0.82) − 0.0009 (− 1.84) ⁎
NPLANTDENSITY1922* 0.0000 (0.06) − 0.001 (− 4.11) ⁎⁎⁎ − 0.0009 (− 3.54) ⁎⁎⁎ − 0.0012 (− 5.03) ⁎⁎⁎ − 0.0012 (− 4.26) ⁎⁎⁎
TIME
AREAI − 0.0043 (− 0.53) 0.008 (0.79) − 0.0014 (− 0.18) 0.0019 (0.26) 0.0141 (1.64)
AREAC 0.0021 (0.28) 0.014 (1.53) 0.0264 (3.78) ⁎⁎⁎ 0.0038 (0.54) 0.0029 (0.36)
Constant 0.0501 (27.25) ⁎⁎⁎ 0.048 (20.64) ⁎⁎⁎ 0.0460 (27.04) ⁎⁎⁎ 0.0488 (28.78) ⁎⁎⁎ 0.0482 (24.50) ⁎⁎⁎
Ward fixed effect Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes
Year fixed effect No No No No No
R-sq within 0.0799 0.2897 0.2645 0.2931 0.0296
Between 0.0181 0.0307 0.0068 0.0051 0.1077
Overall 0.0185 0.0601 0.0796 0.0279 0.0067
Obs. 260 260 260 260 260

B. Dependent variable: LNWORKER

NBROKEN*1923 − 1.0143 (− 5.70) ⁎⁎⁎ − 0.6109 (− 5.49) ⁎⁎⁎ − 0.5036 (− 3.55) ⁎⁎⁎ − 0.7681 (− 7.98) ⁎⁎⁎ − 0.6884 (− 8.00) ⁎⁎⁎
NBROKEN*1924 − 0.6044 (− 3.45) ⁎⁎⁎ − 0.2242 (− 2.05) ⁎⁎ − 0.1235 (− 0.88) − 0.2802 (− 2.96) ⁎⁎⁎ − 0.2932 (− 3.46) ⁎⁎⁎
NBROKEN*1929 − 0.1574 (− 0.82) − 0.1803 (− 1.50) − 0.1273 (− 0.83) − 0.1653 (− 1.59) − 0.2543 (− 2.74) ⁎⁎⁎
NBROKEN*1930 − 0.2365 (− 1.24) − 0.1093 (− 0.92) − 0.1036 (− 0.68) − 0.1180 (− 1.14) − 0.2302 (− 2.49) ⁎⁎
NBROKEN*1931 − 0.2460 (− 1.29) − 0.0357 (− 0.30) − 0.1238 (− 0.81) − 0.1031 (− 1.00) − 0.1464 (− 1.58)
NBROKEN*1932 − 0.0718 (− 0.37) − 0.0822 (− 0.68) − 0.0925 (− 0.60) − 0.0562 (− 0.54) − 0.1349 (− 1.44)
NBROKEN*1933 − 0.0575 (− 0.29) − 0.1311 (− 1.07) − 0.0599 (−0.68) − 0.0913 (− 0.86) − 0.1121 (− 1.18)
NBROKEN*1934 − 0.0157 (− 0.08) − 0.9479 (− 0.75) − 0.0859 (− 0.53) − 0.0470 (− 0.43) − 0.0964 (− 0.99)
NBROKEN*1935 − 0.0488 (− 0.23) − 0.6718 (− 0.52) − 0.0222 (− 0.13) − 0.0512 (− 0.45) − 0.0405 (− 0.40)
NBROKEN*TIMEAFTER − 0.0210 (− 1.05) − 0.0212 (− 1.70) ⁎ 0.0001 (− 0.01) − 0.0133 (− 1.23) − 0.0265 (− 2.74) ⁎⁎⁎
NPLANTDENSITY1922* − 0.0132 (− 1.40) − 0.0263 (− 4.44) ⁎⁎⁎ − 0.0166 (− 2.19) ⁎⁎ − 0.0289 (− 5.68) ⁎⁎⁎ − 0.0251 (− 5.49) ⁎⁎⁎
TIME
AREAI 0.4882 (1.02) 1.2033 (4.02) ⁎⁎⁎ 0.2083 (− 0.55) 0.8158 (3.15) ⁎⁎⁎ 0.9402 (4.06) ⁎⁎⁎
AREAC 0.2677 (0.49) 0.8618 (2.54) ⁎⁎ 0.1873 (0.43) 0.7744 (2.64) ⁎⁎⁎ 1.0393 (3.96) ⁎⁎⁎
Constant 5.3694 (35.23) ⁎⁎⁎ 6.1743 (64.78) ⁎⁎⁎ 5.2856 (43.47) ⁎⁎⁎ 4.6413 (56.28) ⁎⁎⁎ 6.1330 (83.22) ⁎⁎⁎
Ward fixed effect Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes
Year fixed effect No No No No No
R-sq within 0.2844 0.6340 0.3482 0.6455 0.7212
Between 0.0453 0.0011 0.0012 0.0001 0.1084
Overall 0.0698 0.0592 0.0266 0.0081 0.0207
Obs. 260 260 260 260 260
Note: t-values are in parentheses.
⁎⁎⁎ Statistically significant at 1% level.
⁎⁎ Statistically significant at 5% level.
⁎ Statistically significant at 10% level.

suggested in the comments by the mayor of Ebara County. of making Nagoya a great industrial city. They distributed
Similar movements were also observed in more distant leaflets in damaged areas advising that Nagoya City was
areas. For example, Nagoya City made moves to attract keen to attract factory owners whose plants had been
factories from the damaged areas in Tokyo, with the aim damaged by the earthquake and who were planning to
 A. Imaizumi et al. / Explorations in Economic History 60 (2016) 52–68
reconstruct them. Gifu Prefecture, next to Nagoya, also
engaged in these kinds of activities.17 These economic and
intentional forces generated by the earthquake are
considered to have caused the trend shift in the spatial
distribution of industries in Tokyo Prefecture.
5. Concluding remarks
The Great Kantō Earthquake in 1923 was truly a large
shock to the Japanese economy. Whereas the damage
from the earthquake to the GNP was around one-third of
that caused by World War II, the damage from the former
was concentrated in Tokyo Prefecture and Kanagawa
Prefecture. Around 40% of the buildings in Tokyo
Prefecture were completely burnt or destroyed. In this
paper, we investigated whether this temporary shock had
a persistent impact on the spatial distribution of industries
in Tokyo Prefecture, using ward- and county-level panel
data on industrial workers. It was found that while the
earthquake caused mean shifts in the shares and numbers
of workers, the mean shifts disappeared by the early
1930s. On the other hand, the earthquake caused shifts in
the trends of the shares and numbers of workers. The
combined effect of the mean shift and the trend shift was
persistent, for both the shares of workers and the numbers
of workers. The earthquake caused especially serious
damage to the old industrial clusters in the southeast of
Tokyo, and this provided an opportunity for newly
developing industrial clusters in non-damaged areas to
take over the market. In addition, the people and local
governments in non-damaged areas made considerable
efforts to take advantage of this opportunity to attract
factories to their areas. Arguably, these forces made the
impact of the earthquake on the spatial distribution of
industry persistent.
Acknowledgement
We thank Reiko Aoki, Yutaka Arimoto, Maartin
Bosker, Yusaku Horiuchi, Peter Howlet, Takashi
Kurosaki, Tomohiro Machikita, Chiaki Moriguchi,
Kentaro Nakajima, Kaoru Sugihara Osamu Saito, and
anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments and
discussions. This paper received financial support from
Japan Society for the Promotion of Science
(Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research B 21330064).
17
Osaka Jiji Shinpo, October 2–6 1923.
67
Appendix A
To obtain the area of each zone in each ward and
county, we used the following procedure. First, the city
planning map of Tokyo City18 was scanned into six tiled
digital images. Second, the images were rectified19 into
the real-world coordinates, that is, to fit the remaining
roads and landmarks onto a digital map of Tokyo20 found
within GIS. Third, a digital zoning map was created by
digitizing the shapes of each zone onto the rectified city
planning map images. Finally, the digital zoning map
was overlaid with the digital map database of ward and
county boundaries in 1923,21 and the overlapping areas
were computed.
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