抄録
In the 1930s, many Japanese economists were absorbed by the study of the socalled rice problem, i. e. the instability of the price of rice and its supply. Two organizations were important for the advancement of the study. The Agricultural Economic Society was established for the study on all problems related to rural districts and agriculture in 1924. The Japan Society for the Promotion of Science, which was established in 1932, asked leading applied economists to form a committee for the theoretical and practical study on rice policy in 1933. Y. Yagi constructed the price and quantity indices of rice during one year following Parsons's method. E. Sugimoto was requested by Japan Society for the Promotion of Science to make a statistical study of the law of demand for rice.
These early econometric works on rice have been forgotten not only by many economists but also by historians of economic thought. In the 1940s, there was a paradigmatic shift in econometrics. Keynesian macroeconomics and W. Leontief's input-output analysis began to gain popularity in place of the Marshallian single market approach. Also, econometricians became more absorbed in the analysis of the industrial rather than the agricultural sector.
