Institutional Change in Japan [Hardcover]

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. Japans struggle has called into question the ability of the countrys 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.

Introduction  Part 1: Institutional Change in Theory and Practice  1. Theories of Institutional Change: How Well Do They Apply to Japan?  2. Institutional Revolution: The Case of Meiji Japan  3. Institutional Reform in Japan and Korea: Why the Difference?  Part 2: Japanese Institutions: What Has Changed, What Has Not, and Why  4. A Lost Decade For Corporate Governance? Whats Changed, What Hasnt, and Why  5. Japans Economic and Financial Stagnation in the 1990s and Reluctance to Change  6. LilS'