"By the late twentieth century, Japanese people were renowned as the world's most avid and knowledgeable consumers of fashion, luxury and quality, while the goods that embodied their tastes and lifestyle were becoming a part of global culture. Penelope Francks' book offers an alternative account...

In economics, the market has been understood to steer behavior towards a competitive equilibrium in which all economic actors behave optimally, and in which welfare of society is maximized. Yet many economists have also seen shortcomings to this ideal picture of the market in the form of limited...