The Japanese Labor Market in a Comparative Perspective with the United States

The Japanese Labor Market in a Comparative Perspective with the United States PDF Author: Masanori Hashimoto
Publisher: W E Upjohn Inst for
ISBN: 9780880991049
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 150

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Book Description
A comparison is made of some of the notable features of the Japanese and U.S. labor markets. In Japan, as compared to the United States, for example, levels of employment tenure are higher, employer-employee attachment stronger, earnings-tenure profiles more steeply sloped, layoffs and dismissals much less frequent, and joint consultation and consensus-based decision making more common. To bring together these phenomena in a single conceptual framework, a theory is formulated that incorporates transaction-cost (communication cost) considerations into human capital theory. The theory draws a distinction between two types of investments: investments in firm-specific technical skills and investments in the reliability of information exchanged between employer and employees and among employees. This latter type of investment takes place in the Japanese practices. It is hypothesized that there are more investments in Japan than in the United States because, for various reasons, the investment costs are lower in Japan. The investments in both technical skills and in information reliability may be stimulated by technological progress, and the stimulation is greater the more elastic are the cost functions underlying these investments. It is argued that the cost function associated with the investment in information reliability is more elastic in a lower transaction-cost environment. A conclusion based on these results is that cultural-traditional influences, which shape the transaction-cost environment, probably interacted with technological progress in shaping many of the uniquely Japanese labor market phenomena. (177 references) (KC)

The Japanese Labor Market in a Comparative Perspective with the United States

The Japanese Labor Market in a Comparative Perspective with the United States PDF Author: Masanori Hashimoto
Publisher: W E Upjohn Inst for
ISBN: 9780880991049
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 150

Get Book

Book Description
A comparison is made of some of the notable features of the Japanese and U.S. labor markets. In Japan, as compared to the United States, for example, levels of employment tenure are higher, employer-employee attachment stronger, earnings-tenure profiles more steeply sloped, layoffs and dismissals much less frequent, and joint consultation and consensus-based decision making more common. To bring together these phenomena in a single conceptual framework, a theory is formulated that incorporates transaction-cost (communication cost) considerations into human capital theory. The theory draws a distinction between two types of investments: investments in firm-specific technical skills and investments in the reliability of information exchanged between employer and employees and among employees. This latter type of investment takes place in the Japanese practices. It is hypothesized that there are more investments in Japan than in the United States because, for various reasons, the investment costs are lower in Japan. The investments in both technical skills and in information reliability may be stimulated by technological progress, and the stimulation is greater the more elastic are the cost functions underlying these investments. It is argued that the cost function associated with the investment in information reliability is more elastic in a lower transaction-cost environment. A conclusion based on these results is that cultural-traditional influences, which shape the transaction-cost environment, probably interacted with technological progress in shaping many of the uniquely Japanese labor market phenomena. (177 references) (KC)

Structural Change and Labor Market Adjustment

Structural Change and Labor Market Adjustment PDF Author: Robert W. Bednarzik
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Labor market
Languages : en
Pages : 46

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Book Description


The Changing Japanese Labor Market

The Changing Japanese Labor Market PDF Author: Akiomi Kitagawa
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 9811071586
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 190

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Book Description
This book reappraises the Japanese employment system, characterized by such practices as the periodic recruiting of new graduates, lifetime employment and seniority-based wages, which were praised as sources of high productivity and flexibility for Japanese firms during the period of high economic growth from the middle of the 1950s until the burst of bubbles in the early 1990s. The prolonged stagnation after the bubble burst induced an increasing number of people to criticize the Japanese employment system as a barrier to the structural changes needed to allow the economy to adjust to the new environment, with detractors suggesting that such a system only serves to protect the vested interests of incumbent workers and firms. By investigating what caused the long stagnation of the Japanese economy, this book examines the validity of this currently dominant view about the Japanese employment system. The rigorous theoretical and empirical analyses presented in this book provide readers with deep insights into the nature of the current Japanese labor market and its macroeconomic impacts.

Internal Labour Markets in Japan

Internal Labour Markets in Japan PDF Author: Kenn Ariga
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9780521642408
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 308

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Book Description
Internal Labour Markets in Japan analyzes the employment practices of individual firms in Japan, including wages, training, promotion, transfers and turnovers across firms. It provides a comprehensive account of the Japanese ILM, and provides theoretical models that are applied to empirical analysis using the data on Japanese firms. It also includes a detailed case study of a large Japanese firm, and contains a section that deals with the most recent changes in Japanese ILM after the "bubble" economy boom and subsequent recession. An international comparative perspective is used throughout.

Employment Security and Labor Market Flexibility

Employment Security and Labor Market Flexibility PDF Author: Kazuyoshi Kōshiro
Publisher: Wayne State University Press
ISBN: 9780814320792
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 180

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Book Description
Since the oil crisis of the 1970s, increased labor market flexibility seems to have become an indispensable ingredient of economic success. This book examines the critical issues that affect labor market flexibility and job security in the main industrialized economies of the United States, Japan, West Germany, the United Kingdom, and Europe, in an attempt to more fully understand the complex forces at work within such labor markets. Employment Security and Labor Market Flexibility originated from The International Symposium on Labor Market Flexibility in Yokohama, Japan, in 1986, in which scholars in economics, industrial relations, and labor law scholars scrutinized the similarities and differences of the labor markets in these countries. They focused on three main topics: wage flexibility in response to changing economic conditions, the legal and institutional framework for employment security, and international comparison of employment adjustment. Comparison of wage flexibility as well as numerical and functional flexibility among these countries were examined by both qualitative and quantitative analyses. The labor market cannot be treated in the same way as other markets because it deals directly with human beings who are less likely to obey the immutable laws of the market mechanism. Nevertheless, Kazutoshi Koshiro asserts that it is still important to build a framework on which to understand and assess the role of labor flexibility in the competitive process, and it is with this framework in mind that these chapters have been assembled into one volume. Individual chapters compare the relative flexibility of compensation and employment over the business cycle in the United States with that of Japan; analyze the relative flexibility of Japanese wages; unravel some of the underlying forces that comprise the employment security situation in the United States; study the important relationship between economic conditions and the labor market and explain the difference between the employment protection legislation of the United States on the one hand, and Europe and Japan, on the other; and compare the nature of labor markets and employment adjustment techniques of the United States, Europe, and Japan.

Institutionalizing the Active Labor Market Policy in Japan

Institutionalizing the Active Labor Market Policy in Japan PDF Author: Ikuo Kume
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 34

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Book Description


Work and Pay in Japan

Work and Pay in Japan PDF Author: Robert A. Hart
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9780521571371
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 204

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Book Description
Provides a detailed discussion of all aspects of employment (including recruitment, tenure, turnover, promotion, labor force participation, unemployment, and retirement) and labor payments (wages, bonus payments, non-wage costs) in the Japanese labor market. All topics are discussed in relation to comparable experience in the United States and Europe. A major theme concerns whether or not key features of Japanese labor market institutions and practices differ from competitor economies.

The Labor Economies of Japan and the United States

The Labor Economies of Japan and the United States PDF Author: Robert Evans
Publisher: New York : Praeger
ISBN:
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 312

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Book Description
Comparison of the labour relations systems of Japan and the USA - covers trade union development and growth, the strike, public employment policy, the employment relationship and the labour contract, labour force (incl. Rural workers and the woman worker force), labour mobility, unemployment, aggregate wages patterns, productivity, collective bargaining, labour supply, profits, etc. Bibliography pp. 263 to 276, references and statistical tables.

Internal Labor Markets in Japan

Internal Labor Markets in Japan PDF Author: Kenn Ariga
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780511051753
Category : Industrial management
Languages : en
Pages : 291

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Book Description
Analyses the employment practices of individual firms in Japan, including wages, training, promotion, transfers and turnovers across firms. It provides and applies theoretical models of the Japanese ILM, and includes a detailed case study of a large Japanese firm. Uses an international comparative perspective.

Internal Labour Markets in Japan

Internal Labour Markets in Japan PDF Author: Kenn Ariga
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1139431420
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 311

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Book Description
Japanese labour market practices have attracted considerable attention in the West for two reasons. Firstly, innovative human resource management (HRM) is responsible for the development of competitive industrial sectors. Secondly, inner flexibility of the labour market has produced low unemployment and wage flexibility. This study, originally published in 2000, provides a thorough investigation of the distinctive features of Japanese internal labour markets (ILM) and occupational labour markets (OLM), closely analyses important changes in ILM and considers future developments. It combines a mixture both of descriptive and of theoretical and econometric work and builds on the authors' wel- known previous research in this area. Also contains a detailed case study and the econometric analysis of HRM policies used by a large Japanese firm. Although the focus is on Japanese ILM, international comparisons are made throughout, mainly with reference to Europe and the United States.