This paper examines the process through which credit unions were founded by the Korean-Japanese minority, placing particular emphasis on the political and economic conditions that prescribed and enabled their establishment within the historical setting of the North-South conflict. Organized activity by Korean-Japanese political organizations such as Choren, the Federation of Korean-Japanese People, was instrumental in creating the first credit union in the period of reconstruction after World War II. In the ambiguous situation arising while the legal status of the Korean-Japanese was yet to be defined and the establishment of credit unions was not yet certain, organized action by the Korean-Japanese was an important driving force behind joint establishment of credit unions for the elimination of discrimination. However, while the effect of political divisions did not appear immediately, the north-south conflict gradually penetrated the credit union, resulting in the purge of those with differing political opinions. To service those Korean-Japanese who were excluded from the first, a second credit union, the Shogin, was ultimately established by the business community associated with South Korea. Thus, political and economic factors were compounded in the background of this nationwide rollout of the two credit unions. The establishment process of Shogin was not necessarily smooth. One problem was the lack of knowledge regarding financial institutions in the South Korean-Japanese community; another was that despite the will to establish the Shogin, there were not the financial resources to do so. A further problem was that the financial authorities regarded all Korean-Japanese customers as South Korean citizens, which for legal reasons resulted in the lengthy delay in its establishment. In such conditions, the establishment of Shogin was ultimately accomplished with support from ethnic-political institutions such as Mindan, the Federation of Korean-Japanese People, and financing from the South Korean government, which committed to the establishment of the credit union as political conflict with the north sharpened. In the end many small credit unions emerged prefecture by prefecture since they were prescribed for political as well as economic reasons. These credit unions had limited operational scope as financial institutions from the beginning, due to their funding scale. Future growth thus relied on population size and the economic viability of the Korean-Japanese community in the area covered by each union.

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Sales control agencies, civilian-run organizations created at the behest of the Japanese government, were established in wartime Japan in two fields of business. One was the buying and selling of goods, the other was for payment of compensation to wholesalers that had gone out of business. The latter was not an easy task for the sales control agency. Vast funds were necessary for compensation payments, yet it was difficult for the sales control agency to obtain sufficient profit because the buying and selling of goods was restricted by the distribution control agency. Consequently, it was necessary for the sales control agency to raise further capital through internal adjustments. The aim of this study is to clarify how the sales control agency raised sufficient capital for a business compensation fund, using as examples two liquor sales control agencies, the "Greater Japan Liquor Sales Company" (GLC) and the "Prefectural Liquor Sales Company" (PLC). The financial statements of the GLC and PLC show that initially the PLC paid compensation to businesses out of its operating profit. However, after 1943, the GLC funded the PLC's compensation payments. Much of the PLC's business profit was transferred to the GLC, which then redistributed a portion of it to the PLC. In other words, the GLC carried out the capital adjustments required for compensation payments. This redistribution began because of the emergence of regional differences in compensation payments. After capital redistribution by the GLC, regional disparities in compensation payments were reduced. However, over the same period, the volume of liquor production deteriorated, reducing the ability of the sales control agency to fund compensation payments from its income and consequently compensation payments were restricted. In other words, the sales control agency created a structure to redistribute operating profit to fund compensation payments.

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This paper tries to clarify the judicial system of the Tokugawa period by focusing particularly on the Osaka rice exchange market. It is well known that the Tokugawa Shogunate exercised jurisdiction over market trades not exclusively, but in a discretionary fashion. For example, while the claims of merchants in Osaka were fully guaranteed by the Shogunate court, the claims of merchants in Edo were sometimes handled in a discretionary manner by the Shogunate court. The important question is how did the Shogunate guarantee the claims of merchants operating in the Osaka rice exchange market, and why? Rice, collected as tax in kind and shipped by the feudal lords, was stored in warehouses ("kura-yashiki") located in Osaka, and sold at auction. Rice brokers who made successful bids received rice bills ("kome-kitte"), each worth 1,500kg of rice. In the 17th century, each rice bill corresponded to a particular amount of rice that the broker obtained at auction. Later, this correspondence broke down and rice bills took on the characteristics of securities. Issuing a rice bill not backed by inventory had not been permitted by the Shogunate since 1761. However, the Shogunate did not entirely suppress this kind of rice bill. While the governor of Osaka ("Osaka-machi-bugyo") implicitly allowed warehouses to issue unbacked rice bills, he forced the warehouses to respect the claims of the rice bill holders. This meant that claims over rice in kind, as represented by the rice bill, were protected by the court of the city of Osaka. This understanding is supported by the analysis of a "run on the warehouse." In 1791, the Chikugo warehouse ("Chikugo-Gura") failed to convert rice bills into rice in kind. In response, rice bill holders filed a lawsuit with the court of the city of Osaka. The governor of Osaka found for the rice bill holders, protecting the claim over rice in kind as represented by rice bills. As shown in this case, dishonoring a rice bill could lead to a systemic risk. For this reason the Shogunate strictly exercised jurisdiction over the Osaka rice exchange market. Supported by the judicial system provided by the Tokugawa Shogunate, the Osaka market functioned both as a rice exchange market and as a financial market through the latter half of the Tokugawa era.

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The series "Transgressing Borders in American Studies", published in six volumes in 2006 and 2007, is an interesting and timely addition to the field. This series was planned as part of the celebrations of the 2006 fortieth anniversary of the Japanese Association for American Studies (JAAS). The JAAS membership of Japanese specialists in American Studies comes from a wide range of disciplines with a strongly interdisciplinary flavor. In contrast to prior publications by the same Association, each chapter in this collection approaches its subject with its own methodology. As the title of the series claims, this is a work that transgresses borders, between academic fields, the races that divide American society, ethnicity, gender, class. 83 researchers (including 26 female researchers) took part in the production of this series. Volume one, "American culture and self image", in thirteen chapters provides general discussion and background information about the development of the United States of America since its foundation over 200 years ago, and the emergence of historical and cultural characteristics. Volume two, "Power and Violence", addresses the nature of the authority that underwrites the freedom and democracy that define America, illuminating the historical associations between them in fourteen chapters. Volume three covers the post-war period, focusing in particular on economic and environmental issues from the 1960s onwards. First, economic and environmental events are reviewed from a historical perspective; second, global environmental degradation and delayed environmental policy, and third, public finance, economic policy, credit, and transportation policy are reviewed from the new perspectives of environmental economic history and feminist economics. Volume five, under the theme "Globalization and Empire", reexamines from both within and without the development of the federal republic since its foundation, discussing economic issues, exchange of ideas, and the spread of culture. In volume six, "Inheritance and Transfiguration of Culture", the editors outline their desire to examine America through the prism of Japan, examining the significance of the early Meiji Japanese who studied in America, overseas artistic and cultural influences, and the overseas influence of the culture of Japanese "anime". 2008 saw multiple events centered on America generate surprise around the world. One was the financial crisis, arising from the sub-prime loan problem. Another was the election as President of a black Democratic Party candidate, Barack Obama. This series sheds some light on why these two events occurred at this time and is well worth attention.

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