REVISITING EAST ASIAN ECONOMIC HISTORY FROM A GLOBAL PERSPECTIVE
A Two Day Conference at Yale University

Organiser: KURODA, Akinobu (U of Tokyo/Yale)  ankuroda@ioc.u-tokyo.ac.jp

Dates: September 28 and 29 (Friday and Saturday)

Venue: Luce Hall  (Details TBA)

In association with the Council on East Asian Studies, Yale University

and the Todai-Yale Initiative

Supported by the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (No. 22330102 ‘International  Collaborating Research of the Complementarity among Monies Caused by Temporality, Seasonality and Spatiality in Making Transactions’).

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DAY ONE
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Beyond Smithian Growth: Revisiting the Economic History of Early Modern Japan and China

Prior to the opening of the treaty ports in the mid-19th century, both Japan and China were dependent on peasant economies.  And, yet, they were to follow very different paths of economic development after that point.  In order to make sense of this difference, it is necessary for us to look beyond simple notions of Smithian growth, and examine the nature of exchanges that took place among peasant households.  Paying attention not only to the division of labour among households by vocation or products but also allocations of labour within households and their multiple connections to the market is indispensable for understanding peasant economies. Comparing the cases of early modern Japan and China can also help provide alternative ways to think about the dichotomy between state and market, urban and rural, and so on.

Presenters and subjects:
KURODA, Akinobu (U of Tokyo) Peasant economy and multiplicity of market
TANIMOTO, Masayuki (U of Tokyo) Labour allocation in modern Japanese rural household
SUZUKI,Jun (U of Tokyo) Comparison of naval factory between Meiji Japan and Qing China
Fabian Drixler (Yale) The financial infrastructure of welfare institutions in Tokugawa Japan
David Howell (Harvard) Peasant economy in Tokugawa Japan
Madeleine Zelin (Columbia) State involvement in adjudication of merchant disputes in Late Qing and Republican China
Elizabeth Koll (Harvard) The role of railroads in the development of China’s regional economies during the Japanese occupation
Leigh Gardner (London School of Economics) Transport costs and monetization in commercializing economies: medieval England and Colonial Africa compared

Commentators
Daniel Botsman (Yale) Japanese history, Peter Perdue (Yale) Chinese history

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DAY TWO
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Is money substitutive or complementary? East Asian monetary history in global perspective

Until the late 19th century nine out of ten humans across the world made use of multiple systems of money in everyday life.  The importance of small denomination coinage, the imaginary usage of silver by weight, and the prevalence of local paper monies in East Asia show that, depending on the situation, money worked in complementary ways rather than substitutive. Economists, anthropologists, sociologists and historians, whose research covers Asia, Africa, the Americas and Europe will discuss this issue and help to explore why it is that a single unified currency cannot ever dominate the entire world.

Presenters and subjects:
KURODA, Akinobu (U of Tokyo) Complementarity among monies in Chinese and global history
Michael Schiltz (U of Tokyo) Bill of exchange system between early 20th century Japan and its colonies.
Elizabeth Kaske (Carnegie Mellon U) Office selling and money in 19th century China
David Weiman (Columbia, Barnard) The role of private clearing houses in issuing money (substitutes) during financial panics in the late 19th and early 20th centuries
Arturo Giraldez (U of Pacific) Complementary monies in pre-independence Latin America
Patrice Baubeau (U Paris X) Currencies circulation not substitutive in 19th century France

Commentators
Naomi Lamoreaux (Yale) Economics, William Goetzmann (Yale) Business, Jane Guyer (Johns Hopkins) Anthropology, Georges Depeyrot (CNRS/ENS Paris) Numismatics