Revisiting East Asian Economic History from a Global Perspective (Two Day Conference)

Revisiting East Asian Economic History from a Global Perspective (Two Day Conference)

Friday, September 28, 2012 - 9:30am to Saturday, September 29, 2012 - 5:00pm
The International Room, Sterling Memorial Library See map
120 High Street
New Haven, CT 6511

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.

Chaired by Valerie Hansen (Yale) 9:30AM - 11:00AM 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: A Boundary Between “Market” and “Organization” in a Peasant Intermission: 11:00AM -11:15AM 11:15AM - 12:45PM SUZUKI,Jun (U of Tokyo) A Comparison of Naval Factories in Meiji Japan and Qing China Fabian Drixler (Yale) The Financial Infrastructure of Welfare Institutions in Tokugawa Japan Lunch break 12:45PM -1:45PM PART 2 Chaired by Naomi Lamoreaux (Yale) 1:45PM - 3:00PM David Howell (Harvard) Growing Pains: Making Sense of the Peasant Economy in Late Tokugawa Japan Elizabeth Koll (Harvard) Moving Goods in the Market Place: Railroads as Economic Institutions and Infrastructure in Republican China Intermission 3:15PM - 3:30PM 3:30PM - 4:15PM Leigh Gardner (London School of Economics) Transport Costs and Monetization in Commercializing Economies: Medieval England and Colonial Africa Compared 4:20 PM-5:30 PM General Discussion 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.

Chaired by Fabian Drixler (Yale) 10:00AM - 11:30AM 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 11:30AM - 11:45AM 11:45AM - 1:15PM Patrice Baubeau (U Paris X) French Paper During the 19th Century: A Story of Substitution and Complemenatarity David Weiman (Columbia, Barnard)Panics and the Disruption of Payments Networks: The United States in 1893 and 1907 Lunch Break 1:15PM - 2:15PM PART 2: Chaired by Peter Perdue (Yale) 2:15PM - 3:00PM 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 3:00PM -3:15PM 3:15PM - 5:00PM General Discussion Commentators: Naomi Lamoreaux (Yale) Economics, William Goetzmann (Yale) Business, Jane Guyer (Johns Hopkins) Anthropology, Georges Depeyrot (CNRS/ENS Paris) Numismatics

Organized by Professor Akinobu KURODA (University of Tokyo), in association with the Council on East Asian Studies at Yale University and the Todai-Yale Initiative, with support from the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science
Tags: 
Region: 
China, Japan, Korea, Transregional