My current research covers several areas. The first builds on long standing interests in the development of communications networks in Japanese economic history, focusing in particular on the impact of the spread of information and knowledge consequent on the growth of postal services in the late 19th century. We are also in the early stages of developing a comparative project on the economic impact of natural disasters in history, in which I will focus in particular on the impact of events such as earthquakes on the operation of markets.

Current teaching

This year I am teaching a new MSc half module on 'Japan and Korea as Developing Economies (EH423), and also taking the sessions on the MSc Dissertation (EH499). I also teach a third year undergraduate special subject, Issues in Modern Japanese Economic Development (EH325).

Conference and Seminar Papers (since 2006)

2006

'Research in Economics and Economic History on Japan: Current Problems and New Trends', International workshop on Social Science Research, Institut fur Asienkunde, Berlin
'Regimes of Technology Transfer in Japan's Cotton Industry, 1860-1880s', Global History Conference, Kaiohsiung, Taiwan
'Labour Mobilisation, Prices and Standards of Living in Japan, 1937-41', Workshop in Honour of Stephen Large, Cambridge

2007

(with P. Howlett) 'Social Compliance in Britain and Japan during the Second World War: Austerity, Rationing and the Black Market', Workshop on 'Constraints on Consumption', Tartu, Estonia

2008

'Prices, Standards of Living and Material Incentives in Japan, 1937-1941', Birkbeck College, London, and Economic History Society Conference, Nottingham
'Disasters and Markets: Commodity Transactions after the Great Earthquake of 1923,' Institute of Social Science, University of Tokyo, November 2008; Bank of Japan Research Department, December 2008.

2009

'Technology Transfer and the Gendering of Work: Meiji Japan in Comparative Historical Perspective', Economics Department, Kōbe University, December 2008; World Economic History Congress, Utrecht, August 2009
'Nature, Markets and State Response: the Drought of 1939 in Japan and Korea', Institute of Social Science, University of Tokyo, December 2008; University of Cardiff, February 2009; World Economic History Congress, Utrecht, August 2009
‘Gurōbaru na Hikaku kara mita Nihon no Sangyōka’, Shibusawa Memorial Museum, Tokyo, June 2009

2010

‘Entrepreneurs and States in Context’, Wuhan Normal University, Wuhan, China, December 2010

2011

‘”The Markets have Collapsed into Complete Confusion”: Market Operation after the Great Kantō Earthquake of September 1923’, Asia and Europe in Global Context Conference, University of Heidelberg, October 2011

Selected publications

(Editor and introduction (with Penelope Francks) and contributor), The Historical Consumer: Consumption and Everyday Life in Japan, 1850-2000 (Palgrave Macmillan, 2012).
The New Institutional Economics and Third World Development, joint ed. [Routledge 1995]
'The Japanese experience of economic development', in P. O'Brien (ed.) Industrialisation: Critical Perspectives on the World Economy [Routledge 1998]
History of Anglo-Japanese Economic and Business Relations, joint ed. [Palgrave, 2002]
Women and the Labour Market in Japan's Industrialising Economy: The Textile Industry before the Pacific War [Routledge Curzon, 2003; Japanese edition, Yuhikaku, 2008]

Curriculum Vitae

CV (PDF)