Is the first book in the economic history of Asia to focus on the ways in which deterioration of the quality of goods was countered and the quality of the markets maintained

Provides rich historical case studies of how the asymmetry of product-quality information was reduced, with the help of the literature on the theory of market quality

Includes studies on intra-Asian production and trade in small sundry copy-goods to aid in understanding and solving similar problems in contemporary developing countries

Includes supplementary material: [...]

Part I Governing the Quality of Goods: Information, Trust-building and the Self-enforcement Mechanisms of the Market.- 1 Asymmetry of Information, Trust-building and Market Quality: Governing the Quality of Goods in Modern Asia (Kazuko FURUTA and Toshiaki USHIJIMA).- 2 Market Approaches to Dealing with Cotton Adulteration in Early Twentieth Century China (Masataka SETOBAYASHI).- 3 Fraudulent Fertilizer Problem in the Late Meiji Era: Credibility Acquisition by New Market Entrants and the Agricultural Experiment Stations (Chikashi TAKAHASHI).- 4 Two Paths toward Raising Quality: Fertilizer Use in Rice and Sugarcane Cultivation in Colonial Taiwan (1895-1945) (Kensuke HIRAI).- 5 Quality as a Moving Target: Japanese Tea, Consumer Preference, and Federal Regulation on the US Market (Robert HELLYER).- 6 Merchant Association Networks and Product Quality Control: A Case Study of the Silk Pongee Industry in Shandong (Wei ZHANG).- 7 Imitation and Innovation in the Early 20th Century North China Weaving Industry (Linda GROVE).- Part II Small Things and Copy Culture in Global Economic History: From the Perspectives of East Asia.- 8 Imitation, Counterfeiting, and the Market in Early Twentieth Century Japan and China: Intra-Asian Trade in Modern Small Sundry Goods (Kazuko FURUTA).- 9 Technology Transfer, Imitation and Local Production: The Soap Industry in Early 20th Century Tianjin (Linda GROVE).- 10 Assimilation and Industrialization: The Demand for Soap in Colonial Taiwan (Kensuke HIRAI).- 11 Playing with "Alien Fire" (Yanghuo): Matches in Late-Nineteenth and Early-Twentieth Century China (Kai Yiu CHAN).- 12 From Emulation to Innovation: Japanese Toy Exports to High-income Countries before World War II (Masayuki TANIMOTO).- 13 Bottom-up Industrialization in the People's Republic of China: A Case Study of Industries Producing Small Things in Zhejiang (Asei ITO).- Index.<