Research
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The market, which is based on various institutions and systems, including exchanges and legal regulations, forms prices and allocates goods and services. My research conducts a qualitative examination of historical materials pertaining to fundamental institutions and systems. It also employs quantitative analysis on high-frequency trade data to capture historical changes in the function and operating conditions of the market in the Japanese Empire during the modern period.
The market, which is based on various institutions and systems, including exchanges and legal regulations, forms prices and allocates goods and services. My research conducts a qualitative examination of historical materials pertaining to fundamental institutions and systems. It also employs quantitative analysis on high-frequency trade data to capture historical changes in the function and operating conditions of the market in the Japanese Empire during the modern period.
About My Research
Historical documents of the Japanese exchanges before WWII
I examine the formation of commodity prices in the futures and spot markets of the Japanese Empire before WWII. My research is based on the following three questions.
(1) Did the commodity exchanges form the appropriate index prices that influenced the spot prices?
(2) What factors caused the fluctuations in the functions of commodity exchanges?
(3) How did the price relationships between the markets in Japan and its colonies change from the late 19th century until the end of the 1930s?
Tokyo's rice imports from Taiwan, Korea, and foreign countries, 1920-1939
Extensive research has been conducted on the integration of international commodity markets from the 19th century through WWI. This evolution was driven by enhanced market efficiency, as identified by Fama, along with improvements in transportation and telecommunications infrastructure. Although much of this research emphasizes European and North American markets, recent studies reveal a significant trend: the international commodity market began to fragment after the mid-1920s, primarily due to rising tariffs. Conversely, some studies suggest that colonial market ties were reinforced during this period, especially in the Near East, where the British and French empires expanded their influence following the collapse of the Ottoman Empire. Thus, the markets within the empires followed a different trajectory from the international market.
Time-series analysis on the daily rice prices
Imperialism played a crucial role in the modern world economy until the mid-20th century, and thus, economic historians need to examine colonial market relationships. After WWI, Japan outperformed the European Great Powers in terms of the bloc-border effect on commodity trade, largely due to its colonies, such as Taiwan and Korea, being in close proximity to the metropole. This makes the Japanese Empire an ideal case for investigating colonial market connections. My research focuses specifically on the rice market, a fundamental food source in East Asia. During the early 18th century, Japan developed a highly organized rice market, and rice remained a key commodity in Japan and its colonies even after the Meiji Restoration. I perform a time-series analysis to capture the frequent fluctuations in market structure, utilizing high-frequency rice trade data obtained from various archives in Japan and its former colonies, in collaboration with economic historians from Taiwan and South Korea. Unlike previous studies that quantitatively examine the average market structure or annual changes using monthly trade data, my research identifies weekly or monthly fluctuations in market structure that facilitate responses to the aforementioned questions.
ACADEMIC ASSOCIATIONS
United States
Economic History Association
Association for Asian Studies
United Kingdom
Economic History Society
Japan
Socio-Economic History Society
Business History Society of Japan
Mita Historical Society
RECENT AWARDS & FELLOWSHIPS
(For the past five years)
April 2025-March 2028
April 2025-March 2028
Competitive Grant
Japan Society for the Promotion of Science, Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (C), 25K05214
Research on the history of chemical industry in Manchuria during the 1930s and 1940s by analyzing the Seiichiro Mukaibo's Documents: Company-by-company analyses
JPY 4,550,000
Principal Investigator
Yu Yamamoto (Dokkyo University)
Co-Investigator
Kiyotaka Maeda (Keio University)
April 2025-March 2026
April 2025-March 2026
Competitive Grant
Tobacco Academic Studies Center, Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research, 2025-01
The tobacco black market in Yamanashi Prefecture after the Second World War: Reconsidering the "view on the US soldiers as chief culprits" by analysing the Inspection Reports
JPY 750,000
Principal Investigator
Kiyotaka Maeda (Keio University)
Co-Investigator
Jesus Solis (Harvard University, US)
April 2024-March 2027
April 2024-March 2027
Competitive Grant
Japan Society for the Promotion of Science, Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (C), 24K04991
Rice pricing mechanism in the Japanese Empire from the 1910s to the 1930s: Korean rice and price correlation between Tokyo, Osaka, and Incheon
JPY 4,550,000
Principal Investigator
Kiyotaka Maeda (Keio University)
April 2024-March 2030
April 2024-March 2030
Competitive Grant
Japan Society for the Promotion of Science, Grant-in-Aid for Challenging Research (Pioneering), 24K21174
Developing the method of estimating the agricultural production and distribution volume during the medieval period
JPY 23,400,000
Principal Investigator
Keiichi Nakajima (Keio University)
Co-Investigator
Kiyotaka Maeda (Keio University)
Masahiro Nishitani (Fukuoka University)
Kazuki Takahashi (Meiji University)
Kiyoshi Kida (Shizuoka University)
Yushi Tsuchiyama (National Museum of Japanese History)
Hiroki Watanabe (Kanagawa Prefectural Museum of Cultural History)
Yasuyuki Suzuki (Prefectural University of Hiroshima)
Jiro Muraki (National Museum of Japanese History)
Masanori Takashima (Kwansei Gakuin University)
April 2024-March 2025
April 2024-March 2025
Competitive Grant
Zengin (Japanese Bankers Association) Foundation for Studies on Economics and Finance, Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research, 2324
Mechanism of futures rice pricing before the Second World War by utilizing time-series analysis on daily data
JPY 700,000
Principal Investigator
Kiyotaka Maeda (Keio University)
June 2023
June 2023
Award
Izutsu Toshihiko Academic Award
Salt and Empire: Market, Monopoly System, and Colony in Modern Japan
Faculty of Letters, Keio University
April 2023-March 2026
April 2023-March 2026
Competitive Grant
Japan Society for the Promotion of Science, Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (B), 23H00671
Fundamental research to build an empirical estimation model of the macroeconomy in the medieval period
JPY 13,300,000
Principal Investigator
Keiichi Nakajima (Keio University)
Co-Investigator
Kiyotaka Maeda (Keio University)
Shinichi Sakuraki (Asahi University)
Yasuyuki Suzuki (Prefectural University of Hiroshima)
Jiro Muraki (National Museum of Japanese History)
Asei Sato (The University of Shiga Prefecture)
Masahiro Nishitani (Fukuoka University)
Kiyoshi Kida (Shizuoka University)
Tsubasa Nakamura (Kyoto University of Education)
Masanori Takashima (Kwansei Gakuin University)
April 2022-March 2024
April 2022-March 2024
Competitive Grant
Takahashi Industrial and Economic Research Foundation, Research Grant
Distribution and consumption of food in modern East Asia and the Japanese Empire
JPY 6,000,000
Principal Investigator
Kiyotaka Maeda (Keio University)
Co-Investigator
Takuto Shinone (Keio University)
Myungsoo Kim (Keimyung University, South Korea)
Yusuke Takauchi (Tokyo Metropolitan University)
Hideyoshi Yagashiro (Senshu University)
April 2021-March 2024
April 2021-March 2024
Competitive Grant
Japan Society for the Promotion of Science, Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (C), 21K01617
Crackdown on black-market goods distribution and their popularity after the Second World War in Japan: The case of black-market tobacco under the jurisdiction of the Kofu Monopoly Branch Office in 1948
JPY 4,030,000
Principal Investigator
Yu Yamamoto (Dokkyo University)
Co-Investigator
Kiyotaka Maeda (Keio University)
April 2021-March 2022
April 2021-March 2022
Competitive Grant
Japan Society for the Promotion of Science, Publication of Research Results, 21HP5124
Salt and Empire: Market, Monopoly System, and Colony in Modern Japan
JPY 2,400,000
Principal Investigator
Kiyotaka Maeda (Keio University)
October 2020-March 2023
October 2020-March 2023
Competitive Grant
Japan Society for the Promotion of Science, Fund for the Promotion of Joint International Research, Fostering Joint International Research (B), 20KK0029
International collaboration between Japan, Taiwan, and Korea on the structure of interdependent metropolitan and colonial economies in Japan before the Second World War
JPY 18,720,000
Principal Investigator
Kiyotaka Maeda (Keio University)
Co-Investigator
Shigehiko Ioku (Keio University)
Hideyoshi Yagashiro (Senshu University)
Yu Yamamoto (Dokkyo University)
Masanobu Mishina (Shimonoseki City University)
April 2020-March 2024
April 2020-March 2024
Competitive Grant
Japan Society for the Promotion of Science, Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (C), 20K01795
Structure and association of prices in urban and rural soy sauce markets during the Meiji and Taisho periods: Quantitative analysis of the Takanashi Honke Documents
JPY 4,290,000
Principal Investigator
Kiyotaka Maeda (Keio University)
Co-Investigator
Mikio Ito (Keio University)
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