Institutional and Technological Change in Japan's Economy

Institutional and Technological Change in Japan's Economy PDF Author: Janet Hunter
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 113420681X
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 230

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Book Description
Institutional and technological change is a highly topical subject. At the theoretical level, there is much debate in the field of institutional economics about the role of technological change in endogenous growth theory. At a practical policy level, arguments rage about how Japan and the Japanese economy should plan for the future. In this book, leading economists and economic historians of Japan examine a range of key issues concerning institutional and technological change in Japan, rigorously using discipline-based tools of analysis, and drawing important conclusions as to how the process of change in these areas actually works. In applying these ideas to Japan, the writers in this volume are focusing on an issue which is currently being much debated in the country itself, and are helping our understanding of the world’s second-largest economy.

Institutional and Technological Change in Japan's Economy

Institutional and Technological Change in Japan's Economy PDF Author: Janet Hunter
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 113420681X
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 230

Get Book

Book Description
Institutional and technological change is a highly topical subject. At the theoretical level, there is much debate in the field of institutional economics about the role of technological change in endogenous growth theory. At a practical policy level, arguments rage about how Japan and the Japanese economy should plan for the future. In this book, leading economists and economic historians of Japan examine a range of key issues concerning institutional and technological change in Japan, rigorously using discipline-based tools of analysis, and drawing important conclusions as to how the process of change in these areas actually works. In applying these ideas to Japan, the writers in this volume are focusing on an issue which is currently being much debated in the country itself, and are helping our understanding of the world’s second-largest economy.

Institutional Change in Japan

Institutional Change in Japan PDF Author: Magnus Blomström
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1134180578
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 257

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Book Description
This is a new analysis of recent changes in important Japanese institutions. It addresses the origin, development, and recent adaptation of core institutions, including financial institutions, corporate governance, lifetime employment, and the amakudari system. After four decades of rapid economic growth in Japan, the 1990s saw the country enter a prolonged period of economic stagnation. Policy reforms were initially half-hearted, and businesses were slow to restructure as the global economy changed. The lagging economy has been impervious to aggressive fiscal stimulus measures and has been plagued by ongoing price deflation for years. Japan’s struggle has called into question the ability of the country’s economic institutions, originally designed to support factor accumulation and rapid development, to adapt to the new economic environment of the twenty-first century. This book discusses both historical and international comparisons including Meiji Japan, and recent economic and financial reforms in Korea, Scandinavia, Switzerland, and New Zealand, placing the current institutional changes in perspective. The contributors argue that, contrary to conventional wisdom that Japanese institutions have remained relatively rigid, there has been significant institutional change over the last decade.

Japan's New Economy

Japan's New Economy PDF Author: Magnus Blomström
Publisher: OUP Oxford
ISBN: 0191589799
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 342

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Book Description
Japan's economy stumbled in the 1990s. After four decades of rapid growth that transformed Japan into a wealthy country at the world's technological frontier, the last decade brought prolonged economic stagnation. The rapid run-up in asset prices in the late 1980s, followed by their collapse in the early 1990s, left a debt overhang that paralyzed the banking sector. Policy reforms were initially half-hearted, and businesses were slow to restructure as the global economy changed. The lagging economy has seemed impervious to aggressive fiscal stimulus measures and is still plagued by ongoing price deflation. Japan's struggle has called into question the ability of the country's economic institutions - originally designed to support factor accumulation and rapid development - to adapt to the new economic environment of the 21st century. Yet Japan's economy is already changing. Driven by an aging population, rapid technological change, and increasing global competition, the country's public and private institutions are being slowly reshaped. This volume explores the forces that will drive structural and institutional change in three areas over the next decade: the macroeconomy, the organization of industry, and the global economic and political environment. Economists, demographers, and Japan specialists examine key aspects of the economy that will be transformed in coming years, including population and savings, the public pension system, labor markets, financial reforms, deregulation of service industries, productivity performance, foreign investment, trade, and the impact of an emerging China. The volume fills an important gap in the existing economic literature. While much has been written about Japan's pre-1990s institutions and economic performance, this volume is unique in its forward-looking orientation - trying to understand not only the institutional and structural changes that have already reshaped Japan in the 1990s, but to identify the critical trends and institutional changes that will mould Japan's new economy over the next decade.

Japan's Growing Technological Capability

Japan's Growing Technological Capability PDF Author: National Research Council
Publisher: National Academies Press
ISBN: 0309047803
Category : Technology & Engineering
Languages : en
Pages : 244

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Book Description
The perspectives of technologists, economists, and policymakers are brought together in this volume. It includes chapters dealing with approaches to assessment of technology leadership in the United States and Japan, an evaluation of future impacts of eroding U.S. technological preeminence, an analysis of the changing nature of technology-based global competition, and a discussion of policy options for the United States.

Japanese Political Economy Revisited

Japanese Political Economy Revisited PDF Author: David Chiavacci
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 0429884567
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 132

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Book Description
During the last 30 years, the Japanese political economy system has experienced significant changes that are usually not well understood or analysed because of their complexity and contradictions. This book provides new analyses and insights on the process of evolving Japanese political economy including Japan’s current economic policy known as Abenomics. The first three chapters looks at evolutions at the corporate level, characterised in recent years by increasing firm heterogeneity. The authors apply theoretically driven analyses to the complex subject of corporate governance, human resource management and corporate reporting by discussing new developments in context of their economic opportunities as well as of their institutional contradictions with continuities in Japanese business practices. The second group of chapters deals with institutional changes and evolving economic reforms on the macro level of political economy. The two chapters focus on the financial system regulation and economic growth policies as two central elements of Japan’s political economy and key drivers in the evolution of its economy. Their analysis allows us to better understand the interplay between reforms and change in consumption credit and to reinterpret Abenomics as a manifestation of ongoing contradictions within the Japanese political economy. The chapters were originally published in a special issue in Japan Forum.

Struggles for Survival

Struggles for Survival PDF Author: Yoshitaka Okada
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 443128916X
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 307

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Book Description
How did Japanese companies, technology-supporting organizations, and governments reformulate organizational strategies, industrial structures, and institutions to revive Japanese high-tech industries (semiconductor, telecommunications, and biotechnology) in the 1990s? This book takes a comprehensive look at the question by integrating the fields of institutional economics and corporate strategy, an approach that will be of significant interest theoretically and empirically to scholars, professionals, and graduate students. Complex interactions among diverse technology-related actors are presented, focusing on co-evolution among market changes induced by technology innovation, macro-level institutional arrangements for innovation, and corporate strategies for survival. Insights are provided on diverse types of institutional arrangements, technology innovation policies, and management practices for companies and technology organizations.

Managing Innovation in Japan

Managing Innovation in Japan PDF Author: Chihiro Watanabe
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 3540892729
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 256

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Book Description
This book summarizes highlights of the investigation of “An Elucidation of the Role of Institutional Systems in Characterizing Technology Development Trajectories – A Global Comparative Analysis of Manufacturing Technology and Information Te- nology in the Enhancement of Business Practice” supported by Grant-in-Aid for Scienti?c Research (S) by Japan’s Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology/Japan Society for Science Policy over the period 2002–2006. Background and objectives of the investigation are summarized as follows: (a) Japan ranks far below the level of the USA with respect to the development and utilization of information technology (IT) in the information society that emerged in the 1990s. (b) This can be attributed toa vicious cycle between Japan’s non-elastic institutions, insuf?cient utilization of the potential bene?ts of IT, and economic stagnation. (c) The source of such a vicious cycle can be derived from the fundamental d- ferences of the characterizing process of technology between manufacturing technology (MT) and IT during their diffusion processes. This investigation - tempted to elucidate this mechanism. Noteworthy ?ndings obtained include: (a) MT has been developed largely by the supply side and its functionality is - tablished during the stage of its supply to the market. In contrast, IT is strongly driven by the demand side and its functionality is created through diffusion in a self-propagating way. This contrast can be clearly observed in the dramatic advancement of Japan’s mobile phone industry in the late 1990s.

Technology and Industrial Development in Japan

Technology and Industrial Development in Japan PDF Author: Hiroyuki Odagiri
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 9780198288022
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 334

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Book Description
This book studies the industrial development of Japan since the mid-nineteenth century, with particular emphasis on how the various industries built technological capabilities. The Japanese were extraordinarily creative in searching out and learning to use modern technologies, and the authors investigate the emergence of entrepreneurs who began new and risky businesses, how the business organizations evolved to cope with changing technological conditions, and how the managers, engineers, and workers acquired organizational and technological skills through technology importation, learning-by-doing, and their own R & D activities. The book investigates the interaction between private entrepreneurial activities and public policy, through a general examination of economic and industrial development, a study of the evolution of management systems, and six industrial case studies: textile, iron and steel, electrical and communications equipment, automobiles, shipbuilding and aircraft, and pharmaceuticals. The authors show how the Japanese government has played an important supportive role in the continuing innovation, without being a substitute for aggressive business enterprise constantly venturing into unfamiliar terrains.

21st Century Innovation Systems for Japan and the United States

21st Century Innovation Systems for Japan and the United States PDF Author: National Research Council
Publisher: National Academies Press
ISBN: 0309136628
Category : Technology & Engineering
Languages : en
Pages : 302

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Book Description
Recognizing that a capacity to innovate and commercialize new high-technology products is increasingly a key for the economic growth in the environment of tighter environmental and resource constraints, governments around the world have taken active steps to strengthen their national innovation systems. These steps underscore the belief of these governments that the rising costs and risks associated with new potentially high-payoff technologies, their spillover or externality-generating effects and the growing global competition, require national R&D programs to support the innovations by new and existing high-technology firms within their borders. The National Research Council's Board on Science, Technology, and Economic Policy (STEP) has embarked on a study of selected foreign innovation programs in comparison with major U.S. programs. The "21st Century Innovation Systems for the United States and Japan: Lessons from a Decade of Change" symposium reviewed government programs and initiatives to support the development of small- and medium-sized enterprises, government-university- industry collaboration and consortia, and the impact of the intellectual property regime on innovation. This book brings together the papers presented at the conference and provides a historical context of the issues discussed at the symposium.

Technological Innovation and Economic Development in Modern Japan

Technological Innovation and Economic Development in Modern Japan PDF Author: Guan Quan
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1000245691
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 236

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Book Description
This book analyzes the relationship between technological innovation and economic development in Japan before World War II. Guan Quan deploys econometric analysis, multivariate statistical analysis and case studies from different industries to shed light on technological innovation in the Japanese context with particular emphasis on the importance of the patent system. A great deal of new inventions and patents in this period led to fast economic growth in Japan characterized by the simultaneous development of both traditional and modern industries. These insights help reshape the understanding of Japan's economic development and industrial advancement at an early stage and provide pointers to developing countries as to how human capital, social capabilities and thereby technological innovation can figure in economic growth. The book will appeal to academics of the East Asian economy, development economics and modern economic history as well as general readers interested in the miracle of the Japanese economy as the first to achieve economic development and modernization among non-Western countries.