2022 Fiscal Year Research-status Report
An Analysis of the 'flow-of-funds' within the Yokohama Specie Bank, 1910-1940
| Project/Area Number |
19K01773
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| Research Institution | Hokkaido University |
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Principal Investigator |
Schiltz Michael 北海道大学, メディア・コミュニケーション研究院, 准教授 (50624582)
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| Project Period (FY) |
2019-04-01 – 2024-03-31
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| Keywords | exchange banks / banking history / hedging technologies / gold standard / silver standard |
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| Outline of Annual Research Achievements |
The reception of the project's results has been more forthcoming than expected. Oxford University press decided to publish my book in its economic history series (published in December 2020). Within Japan, I have profited from extensive contacts with several researchers. Kobayashi Atsushi (Kyoto University), in particular, plans to build on my research findings to develop a larger research project studying all 'exchange banks' in the nineteenth and early twentieth century. As a preliminary step towards such project, we acquired the full collection of balance sheets of the Chartered Mercantile Bank and the Mercantile Bank of India, London, and China. These amount to several thousand pages of primary data, most of which have not been used before). We are currently in the phase of understanding the information/data contained in the ledgers. Publication of 1 or 2 journal articles in international journals for Economic History (the Economic History Review) are being planned for publication; however, the construction of a complete dataset will probably fall outside the scope of this project. Internationally, the Financial History Review agreed to the publication of a special issue on Asian banking history, edited by prof. Okazaki Tetsuji (University of Tokyo), Ghassan Moazzin (Hong Kong University), and myself. Several papers have been gathered and will be submitted within this fiscal year (2023-2024).
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| Current Status of Research Progress |
Current Status of Research Progress
2: Research has progressed on the whole more than it was originally planned.
Reason
-early publication of research results through one of the most important university presses in the world (Oxford University Press)
-notwithstanding the impossibility of doing archival research in London because of COVID-19, I was capable of receiving the complete balance sheets of two major exchange banks from the nineteenth century.
-recently, my publications were picked up on social media, which resulted in a few invitations for lectures at leading universities (e.g. The
New School, NY; also, I have been interviewed about my book on the 'New Books Network')
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| Strategy for Future Research Activity |
-arguably the most important forthcoming phase of the project is the publication of a special issue of the Financial History Review, which builds on the 'search theoretical' approach explored in my monograph
-further construction of a sustainable online library of non-disclosed archival sources through FigShare
(https://figshare.com/authors/Michael_Schiltz/409900)
-preliminary analysis of the balance sheets of the Chartered Mercantile Bank and the Mercantile Bank of India, London, and China.
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| Causes of Carryover |
Because of the Covid-19 pandemic, archival research for this research project had to be suspended; however, the acquisition of the photographs of the ledgers of 2 crucial British exchange banks made ip for this gap. At the same time, the project has started concentrating on both 1) the technicalities of bill finance in the nineteenth century and 2) the development of actuarial science in the period. The project's principal investigator foresees the acquisition of further primary sources in the respect.
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