One of the most cherished propositions in economics is that market competition by and large raises consumer welfare. But whether political competition has similarly virtuous consequences is far less discussed. This paper formulates a model to explain why political competition may enhance...

Acemoglu, Johnson, & Robinson (2002) have claimed that the world income distribution underwent a Reversal of Fortune from 1500 to the present, whereby formerly rich countries in what is now the developing world became poor while poor ones grew rich. We question their analysis with regard to both...

'Where feudalism ends, the capitalist regime commences.' This familiar and prima facie self-evident statement is the proposition which I want to examine in this paper. I would argue as follows: Even given the uniformity of feudalism everywhere in the world (i.e. if it has always appeared in its...

Peter Davies in his paper outlines the major trends in the development of Japan's commercial shipping prior to World War I. The paper focusses in particular on the role played by the Japanese government, arguing that the promotion of the industry was undertaken primarily not for commercial, but...

Preface: Dr Gordon Daniels, Reader in History at the University of Sheffield, presented his paper on the Social History of Occupied Japan at a one-day workshop on the Teaching of Japanese Economic and Social History, hel at the Suntory-Toyota International Centre on 16 May 1990. We are grateful...

Shillony: Paper examines how Japan's imperial dynasty dependent on the male line of succession has lasted so long and analyses how it will overcome its present difficulties. An Advisory Panel was created to recommend future policy to the Koizumi cabinet but its report in 2005 was criticized. The...

Lone: The 1920s saw the emergence in Kansai of modern industrial urban living with the development of the underground, air services; wireless telephones, super express trains etc. Automobiles dominated major streets from the early 1920s in the new Age of Speed. Using Kyoto city as an example,...

(Massarella paper): The William Adams story has been told many times, but not completely. This paper corrects matters of fact and revises matters of interpretation. It adds new information about Adams the man and examines the fabrication of the myth of William Adams or Miura Anjin that has...

We provide evidence on the extent of ethnic segregation experienced by children across secondary schools and neighbourhoods (wards). Using 2001 Schools Census and Population Census data we employ the indices of dissimilarity and isolation and compare patterns of segregation across nine ethnic...

This paper investigates the relationship between growth and inequality from a demographicpoint of view. In an extended model of the accidental bequest with endogenous fertility, weanalyze the effects of a decrease in the old-age mortality rate on the equilibrium growth rateas well as on the...