Makio Yamada conducts research on historical political economy. He is currently investigating the origins of modern economic growth in some European countries in the late nineteenth century, with the particular focus on how the developmental coalition shifts occurred and how the vested interests were politically marginalized.

His recent publications include: “Making Reform and Stability Compatible with Each Other: Elite Redeployment in Meiji Japan” (Journal of Institutional Economics, 2022) and “How Can the Japanese Anomaly Be Explained? A Review Essay of Atul Kohli's Imperialism and the Developing World” (Japanese Journal of Political Science, 2021).

Prior to this research, he specialized in the political economy of oil-producing counties in the Gulf region of the Middle East. His publications in this field include: “Can a Rentier State Evolve to a Production State? An ‘Institutional Upgrading’ Approach” (British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies, 2020) and “Can Saudi Arabia Move beyond ‘Production with Rentier Characteristics’? Human Capital Development in the Transitional Oil Economy” (Middle East Journal, 2018).

He was a Lecturer at the Institute for the Transregional Study, Princeton University between 2018 and 2020. He received DPhil in International Relations and MPhil in Modern Middle Eastern Studies from the University of Oxford.