ABSTRACT
Written contracts developed partly from the need to protect the employer from the dangers of integrating strangers into the corporate structure of the family business. Several Japanese scholars have noted signs of labor shortage during the Tokugawa period. The rural-based businesses had smaller local communities to draw labor from and rural employers were more likely to know workers from the same town or village as the employer. Contracts for urban workers tend to have guarantors local to the employer, whereas contracts for rural workers tend to have more guarantors local to the worker. The incomes of local and central governments, domain lords and their retainers depended primarily upon the rice tax. During the eighteenth century, central and local governments frequently tried to control or prohibit labor migration.
