Todai-Yale Initiative Conference at Yale University, "REVISITING EAST ASIAN ECONOMIC HISTORY FROM A GLOBAL PERSPECTIVE"
A two-day conference will be held as follows. Please come and join us.
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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), 2012
Venue: The International Room in the Sterling Memorial Library
*Pre-registration is NOT required.
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’).
DAY ONE
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.
Part 1 chaired by Valerie Hansen (Yale)
930-1100
KURODA, Akinobu (U of Tokyo) Peasant economy and multiplicity of market in China
TANIMOTO, Masayuki (U of Tokyo) Labour allocation in modern Japanese rural household
Intermission 1100-1115
1115-1245
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
Lunch break 1245-1345
Part 2 chaired by Naomi Lamoreaux (Yale)
1345-1600
David Howell (Harvard) Peasant economy in Tokugawa Japan
Elizabeth Koll (Harvard) Moving Goods in the Market Place: Railroads as Economic Infrastructure in Republican China
Intermission 1515-1530
1530-1615
Leigh Gardner (London School of Economics) Transport costs and monetization in commercializing economies: medieval England and Colonial Africa compared
General Discussion 1620-1730
Commentators
Daniel Botsman (Yale) Japanese history, Peter Perdue (Yale) Chinese history
DAY TWO
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, anthropologist, numismatist 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.
Part 1 chaired byFabian Drixler (Yale)
1000-1130
KURODA, Akinobu (U of Tokyo) Complementarity among monies in Chinese, Japanese and global history
Elizabeth Kaske (Carnegie Mellon U) Office selling and money in 19th century China
Intermission 1130-45
1145-1315
Patrice Baubeau (U Paris X) Currencies circulation not substitutive in 19th century France
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
Lunchtime 1315-1415
Part 2 chaired byPeter Perdue (Yale)
1415-1545
Arturo Giraldez (U of Pacific) Complementary monies in pre-independence Latin America
Bruno Théret, (CNRS, U Paris IX) Monetary experiments of complementarity among fiscal monies in contemporary federal polities: some general principles and the case of Argentina between 1984 and 2003
Intermission 1545-1600
General Discussion 1600-1730
Commentators
Naomi Lamoreaux (Yale) Economics, William Goetzmann (Yale) Business, Jane Guyer (Johns Hopkins) Anthropology, Georges Depeyrot (CNRS/ENS Paris) Numismatics
