Outsourcing the Lord’s Finance: An Origin of Local Public Finance in Early Modern Japan
Affiliation: University of Sacred Heart, Tokyo, JP
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Chapter from the book: Tanimoto M. & Wong R. 2019. Public Goods Provision in the Early Modern Economy: Comparative Perspectives from Japan, China, and Europe.
This chapter, by Kazuho Sakai, focuses on a case in which a lord (hatamoto) outsourced the fiscal management activities to local notables, who reduced the lord’s household expenses and created a fiscal surplus. This surplus was used not only to repay a debt owed to intra-domain creditors but also to create a fund that they expected to spend on civil engineering, building, or relief projects for the domain’s inhabitants. The notables diverted the lord’s finances to establish a financial basis for providing public goods to local inhabitants. This diversion can be recognized as a contribution to the formation of local public finance that played a significant role in public-goods provision well into early twentieth-century Japan.