Research projects

Fake, imitation, and counterfeit goods have long plagued domestic and international trade. While we are all familiar with contemporary attempts to control the manufacture and sales of such goods, economic historians have given the subject little attention. This project focused on problems associated with imported everyday-use sundry goods (zakka in Japanese) and the role played by local production of imitations, the rise of markets for counterfeiting and shoddy goods, import substitution/export oriented industrialization and the development of labor intensive small scale industry, and the acceptance of "new products"in the recipient societies in 19th and 20th centuries Asia.