Japan's mid 19th century transition from 200 years of self-imposed autarky to open trade is the main success story of East Asian integration into the world economy during the first wave of globalization (1850-1914). This article reviews the economic, institutional and normative changes within...

What is the impact of international trade on cities and rural areas within a country? Existing studies on this topic are based on new economic geography models, which focus on the effect of international trade on the change in the balance between agglomeration and dispersion forces of the...

The centre of economic activities in Japan was once in western Japan. Since the mid-nineteenth century, however, economic activities within Japan have been continuously shifting towards the east side of the country including Tokyo. Conventional wisdom associates the end of the Tokugawa feudal...