During World War II, the Japanese government created a research bureau, the Chosabu, to study occupied Singapore. The bureau’s reports on Singapore’s economy and society, reproduced here in translation, covered population and living standards, prices, wages, currency and inflation, rationing, labour usage, food production and supply, and industrialization. Syonan’s military and civilian administrators drew on Chosabu research in formulating social and economic policy. The research takes on added importance because the Japanese destroyed most records of their wartime administration. That leaves the Chosabu reports as one of the few first-hand Japanese sources to have survived the war. The translation allows a fuller understanding of the impact of the war and occupation than hitherto possible. Introductory chapters by the editors analyse the reports in light of wartime events in Singapore and Japanese occupation policies, and discuss the Chosabu authors and their place in the history of Japanese economic thought.