Ruth Taplin is Director of the Centre for Japanese and East Asian Studies, London, which won Exporter of the Year in Partnership in Trading/Pathfinder for the UK in 2000. She received her doctorate from the London School of Economics and is the author/editor of twelve books and over 200 articles. She has been the editor of the Journal of Interdisciplinary Economics for eleven years. Currently she is a Research Fellow at Birkbeck College, University of London and the University of Leicester. She was appointed Visiting Professor at the School of International Business and Management, University of Warsaw, Poland in January 2005.