The Japanese Business Community and National Trade Policy, 1920-1942

Miles Fletcher examines the role of the Japanese business community in helping the nation solve an unprecedented combination of economic challenges in the 1920s and 1930s: chronic trade deficits, world depression, rampant protectionism, and mobilization for war in Asia. Because of such severe crises, business executives changed their attitudes toward foreign trade and types of national economic policies needed to succeed in a global marketplace.

After trade deficits began occurring in the 19...