Relative to the other habited places on our planet, Hawai‘i has a very short history. The Hawaiian archipelago was the second-to-last major land area on the planet to be settled, with Polynesians making the long voyage just under a millennium ago. Our understanding of the social, political, and economic changes that have unfolded since then has been limited until recently by how little we knew about the first five centuries of settlement.Building on new archaeological and historical research, Sumner La Croix assembles the economic history of Hawai‘i from the first Polynesian settlements in the 12^th/13^thcenturies through the unification of Hawai‘i under Kamehameha in 1795, US colonization at the start of the 20^thcentury, the emergence of statehood after World War II, and the challenges facing Hawai‘i as a US state. His analysis begins by showing how the political and economic institutions that emerged and evolved in Hawai‘i during its centuries of global isolation changed in response to Hawai‘i’ s post-1778 integration into a new world of global markets and colonial politics. La Croix shows how the 1876 U.S.-Hawaii free trade treaty left Hawaii vulnerable to U.S. demands that culminated in the U.S. takeover of the island nation in 1898. U.S. colonial rule lasted for 61 years before changes in Hawaiian and U.S. politics led to Hawaii becoming a U.S. state in 1959. The transition to an open-access political order led to dramatic changes in state policies and increased economic growth but the new state and its people have struggled to address important legacies of the colonial era, in particular lost Hawaiian sovereignty and the state’s illegal confiscation of crown lands.

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The American economy has provided a level of well-being that has consistently ranked at or near the top of the international ladder. A key source of this success has been widespread participation in political and economic processes. Co-authored by some of the leading economic historians specializing in U.S. economic history, this volume chronicles the significance of America as an open-access society and the roles played by government in its unrivaled success story.

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In this volume La Croix and Petri collect essays debating the state of globalization. Participants of the 30th Pacific Trade and Development Conference discuss globalization's prospects in East Asia and the effects that that region's localized trade has had on world-wide globalization.

International trade within the East Asian region has strengthened, but globalization is flagging. Participants of the 30th Pacific Trade and Development Conference discuss globalization's prospects, asking whether globalization has terminally weakened or if a resurgence is possible. The essays collected in this volume also examine the global and local effects of globalization with new data, touching on the location of pollution-intensive industries, outsourcing, and international security.

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In this volume Blomström and La Croix examine the effect Japan's prolonged economic stagnation has had on its financial and cultural institutions. The contributors argue that, contrary to popular belief, these institutions have undergone significant change during this period. Topics include the origin, development, and adaptations of these core institutions-- financial institutions, as well as the systems of corporate governance, lifetime employment and amakudari. Discussion also includes international comparisons between Japan's institutional changes and the reforms that have recently taken place in Korea, Scandinavia, Switzerland, and New Zealand, as well as a historical comparison with Meiji Japan.

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Japan's New Economy: Continuity and Change in the

Twenty-First Century

Magnus Blomström, Byron Gangnes, and Sumner La Croix, editors

2001--Oxford University Press

Japan's economy stumbled in the 1990s. After four decades of rapid growth that transformed Japan into a wealthy country at the world's technological frontier, the 1990s brought prolonged economic stagnation. Japan's struggle has called into question the ability of the country's economic institutions - originally designed to support factor accumulation and rapid development - to adapt to the new economic environment of the 21st century. While much has been written about Japan's pre-1990s institutions and economic performance, this volume is unique in its forward-looking orientation - trying to understand not only the institutional and structural changes that have already reshaped Japan in the 1990s, but to identify the critical trends and institutional changes that will mould Japan's new economy in the 21st century.

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