Communities and Markets in Economic Development

Masahiko Aoki is Henri and Tomoye Takahashi Professor of Japanese Studies and Professor of Economics at Stanford University and Director-General of the Research Institute of Japan's Ministry of International Trade and Industry. His work on the theory of the firm, the Japanese economy, and comparative economic institutions has given rise to many widely read publications, including The Japanese Main Bank System (co-edited with Hugh Patrick) and The Co-operative Game Theory of the Firm.

• Introduction: Communities and Markets in Economic Development ; PART I. THEORETICAL AND HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVES ; 1. Impersonal Exchange and the Origin of Markets: From the Community Responsibility System to Individual Legal Responsibility in Pre-modern Europe ; 2. Community and Market in England: Open Fields and Enclosures Revisited ; 3. The Two Paths of Agrarian System Evolution in the Philippine Rice Bowl ; 4. Community Norms and Embeddedness: A Game-Theoretic Approach ; PART II. COMMUNITY IN MARKET DEVELOPMENT ; 5. Middlemen in a Peasant Community: Vegetable Marketing in Indonesia ; 6. Market Integrators for Rural-based Industrialization: The Case of the Hand-Weaving Industry in Laos ; 7. The Role of Business Networks in Market Development in Sub-Saharan Africa ; 8. Risk and Insurance in Transition: Perspectives from Zhouping County, China ; PART III. GOVERNANCE OF LOCAL COMMONS ; 9. Water Community: An Empirical Analysis of Cooperation on Irrigation in South India ; 10. State and Community in the Deterioration of a National Irrigation System ; 11. Evolution and Consequences of Community Forest Management in the Hill Region of Nepal ; 12. Liberal Reforms and Community Responses in Mexico ; 13. Community Arrangements to Overcome Market Failures: Pooling Groups in Japanese Fisheries ; 14. Comments

... a highly stimulating volume with a sharp focus and a coherent theme. Both academic researchers and policy-makers would benefit immensely from a careful reading of the rich and scholarly papers.