ABSTRACT
At the beginning of Meiji, the new government declared that, from then on, the Japanese calendar was to be renewed when and only when the ruling emperor departed. Japanese life was also changing. Though most people continued to eat traditional food and wore traditional kimono, urban and Western cultures were becoming increasingly popular. The export-led boom was a broad-based one benefiting all industries. Among them, maritime shipping and shipbuilding sectors were extremely profitable and expanded most vigorously. Even under the cloudy sky of the 1920s, new sectors were growing. Heavy and chemical industries (HCIs) expanded strongly despite relatively weak aggregate demand. With the development of HCIs, a new type of zaibatsu emerged in the 1920s and 1930s. Compared with old zaibatsu such as Mitsui, Sumitomo, Mitsubishi and Yasuda, new zaibatsu were HCI-based without much involvement in banking, commerce or light manufacturing such as cotton spinning.
