This book explains how standard micro-founded macroeconomics is misguided and proposes an alternative method based on statistical physics. The Great Recession following the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers in September 2015 amply demonstrated that mainstream micro-founded macroeconomics was in trouble. The new approach advanced in this book reasonably explains important macro-problems such as employment, business cycles, growth, and inflation/deflation. The key concept is demand failures, which modern micro-founded macroeconomics has ignored.“It (Chapter 3) captures analytically a good part of...

This book explores how a long-term innovation can take place based on historical analyses of the development of reverse osmosis (RO) membrane from the early 1950s to the mid-2010s. The RO membrane is a critical material for desalination that is a key to solve water shortages becoming serious in many places of the world.The authors conducted in-depth field studies as well as analyses of rich archival data to demonstrate how researchers, engineers, managers, entrepreneurs, and policymakers interacted each other for this material innovation to be realized. A series of historical analyses in this...

This book aims to review the postwar interactions of Japan with Asia. The Japanese factory production system,kaizen, has been shared in Asia. This book collects more diverse topics from Japan’s interactions with China, the Philippines, Indonesia, and Hong Kong. Each chapter provides details on how the business, political, and cultural interactions enrich both sides.  The findings are then used to suggest the possibility of a de-facto Asian Community and Japan’s role in the present and  post-COVID-19 world.