The formation of the efficient market in Tokugawa Japan

Abstract

The first modern futures market is said to date back to the Chicago Board of Trade established in 1848. However, there existed an older precedent; the Dojima Rice Market established in 1730 in Osaka. The past literature on Dojima has made it clear that Dojima had well-established trading systems. However, a important question remains unanswered: whether the first well-established futures market efficient or not? This paper first constructs the daily price index from the original historical document, and applies the test of unbiasedness hypothesis and the classic measure of market efficiency; "weak-form efficiency" to Dojima Rice Market, and shows that there existed these types of efficiency.Tokugawa Period Japan, Futures Market, Informational Efficiency