Introduction

Toshiaki Ushijima conducts historical analyses of corporate restructuring in declining industries and structural changes in regional commerce, exploring the impact of industrial policies on corporate behavior and the dynamics of regional commerce.

■Urban and Regional Commercial Development
Research Objective: To clarify the characteristics of commercial accumulation in local cities that developed in the 1920s and 1930s by examining the commercial distribution within cities and comparing urban and rural areas using statistical surveys in Nagano Prefecture.
Research Objective: To examine the mechanisms that produce diversity in the attitudes of small and medium-sized retailers towards large store expansion and opening, with a focus on inter-regional competition, using the case of Kofu City, Yamanashi Prefecture since the 1960s.
■Corporate Restructuring and Policy Analysis
Research Objective: To analyze the decline of Japan’s coal industry in the postwar period and to elucidate the relationship between structural adjustment policies and corporate behavior in the coal sector.
■ Analysis of the Export Industrialization of Domestic Industries in the Meiji Era
Research Objective: To re-evaluate the export promotion policies of the domestic spinning industry in the early 1890s.
Research Objective: To examine the introduction of ring spinning machines and the resulting productivity growth in the cotton spinning industry during the Meiji era.
■ The Relationship Between Economic Theory and Trade Policy in the Meiji Period
Research Objective: To examine Yukichi Taguchi’s theoretical and policy perspectives on international trade and tariffs.

Areas of Research

・Industrial History
・Business History
・Economic History

Social Contributions

・Insights into the effectiveness and limitations of policies for declining industries serve as a guide for industrial policy formulation.
・Clarifying the historical mechanisms of regional commercial development provides guidance for contemporary regional development strategies.