Japanese Economic Development

Japanese Economic Development PDF Author: Penelope Francks
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1134661827
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 333

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Book Description
This newly revised, clearly-presented text looks at Japan's economic history from the nineteenth century through to World War II. Working within a framework based on the theories and approaches of development studies, Francks demonstrates the relevance of Japan's pre-war experience to the problems facing developing countries today, and draws out the historical roots of the institutions and practices on which Japan's post-war economic miracle was based. New features include: * fresh theoretical perspectives * additional material derived from new sources * an increased number of case studies * fully up-dated references and bibliography. This broad-ranging textbook is both topical and easy-to-use and will be of immense use to those seeking an understanding of Japanese economic development.

Japanese Economic Development

Japanese Economic Development PDF Author: Penelope Francks
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1134661827
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 333

Get Book Here

Book Description
This newly revised, clearly-presented text looks at Japan's economic history from the nineteenth century through to World War II. Working within a framework based on the theories and approaches of development studies, Francks demonstrates the relevance of Japan's pre-war experience to the problems facing developing countries today, and draws out the historical roots of the institutions and practices on which Japan's post-war economic miracle was based. New features include: * fresh theoretical perspectives * additional material derived from new sources * an increased number of case studies * fully up-dated references and bibliography. This broad-ranging textbook is both topical and easy-to-use and will be of immense use to those seeking an understanding of Japanese economic development.

A Culture of Growth

A Culture of Growth PDF Author: Joel Mokyr
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691168881
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 417

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Book Description
Why Enlightenment culture sparked the Industrial Revolution During the late eighteenth century, innovations in Europe triggered the Industrial Revolution and the sustained economic progress that spread across the globe. While much has been made of the details of the Industrial Revolution, what remains a mystery is why it took place at all. Why did this revolution begin in the West and not elsewhere, and why did it continue, leading to today's unprecedented prosperity? In this groundbreaking book, celebrated economic historian Joel Mokyr argues that a culture of growth specific to early modern Europe and the European Enlightenment laid the foundations for the scientific advances and pioneering inventions that would instigate explosive technological and economic development. Bringing together economics, the history of science and technology, and models of cultural evolution, Mokyr demonstrates that culture—the beliefs, values, and preferences in society that are capable of changing behavior—was a deciding factor in societal transformations. Mokyr looks at the period 1500–1700 to show that a politically fragmented Europe fostered a competitive "market for ideas" and a willingness to investigate the secrets of nature. At the same time, a transnational community of brilliant thinkers known as the “Republic of Letters” freely circulated and distributed ideas and writings. This political fragmentation and the supportive intellectual environment explain how the Industrial Revolution happened in Europe but not China, despite similar levels of technology and intellectual activity. In Europe, heterodox and creative thinkers could find sanctuary in other countries and spread their thinking across borders. In contrast, China’s version of the Enlightenment remained controlled by the ruling elite. Combining ideas from economics and cultural evolution, A Culture of Growth provides startling reasons for why the foundations of our modern economy were laid in the mere two centuries between Columbus and Newton.

MITI and the Japanese Miracle

MITI and the Japanese Miracle PDF Author: Chalmers Johnson
Publisher: Stanford University Press
ISBN: 080476560X
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 818

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Book Description
The focus of this book is on the Japanese economic bureaucracy, particularly on the famous Ministry of International Trade and Industry (MITI), as the leading state actor in the economy. Although MITI was not the only important agent affecting the economy, nor was the state as a whole always predominant, I do not want to be overly modest about the importance of this subject. The particular speed, form, and consequences of Japanese economic growth are not intelligible without reference to the contributions of MITI. Collaboration between the state and big business has long been acknowledged as the defining characteristic of the Japanese economic system, but for too long the state's role in this collaboration has been either condemned as overweening or dismissed as merely supportive, without anyone's ever analyzing the matter. The history of MITI is central to the economic and political history of modern Japan. Equally important, however, the methods and achievements of the Japanese economic bureaucracy are central to the continuing debate between advocates of the communist-type command economies and advocates of the Western-type mixed market economies. The fully bureaucratized command economies misallocate resources and stifle initiative; in order to function at all, they must lock up their populations behind iron curtains or other more or less impermeable barriers. The mixed market economies struggle to find ways to intrude politically determined priorities into their market systems without catching a bad case of the "English disease" or being frustrated by the American-type legal sprawl. The Japanese, of course, do not have all the answers. But given the fact that virtually all solutions to any of the critical problems of the late twentieth century--energy supply, environmental protection, technological innovation, and so forth--involve an expansion of official bureaucracy, the particular Japanese priorities and procedures are instructive. At the very least they should forewarn a foreign observer that the Japanese achievements were not won without a price being paid.

Institutional Change in Japan

Institutional Change in Japan PDF Author: Magnus Blomström
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 113418056X
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 415

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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.

War and State Building in Medieval Japan

War and State Building in Medieval Japan PDF Author: John A. Ferejohn
Publisher: Stanford University Press
ISBN: 0804774315
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 194

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Book Description
The nation state as we know it is a mere four or five hundred years old. Remarkably, a central government with vast territorial control emerged in Japan at around the same time as it did in Europe, through the process of mobilizing fiscal resources and manpower for bloody wars between the 16th and 17th centuries. This book, which brings Japan's case into conversation with the history of state building in Europe, points to similar factors that were present in both places: population growth eroded clientelistic relationships between farmers and estate holders, creating conditions for intense competition over territory; and in the ensuing instability and violence, farmers were driven to make Hobbesian bargains of taxes in exchange for physical security.

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.

Culture and Institutions in the Economic Growth of Japan

Culture and Institutions in the Economic Growth of Japan PDF Author: Juro Teranishi
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 9784431556268
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 387

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Book Description
This book gives a coherent explanation of the socio-economic dynamics of Japan from the thirteenth to the twentieth centuries by means of the evolution of internalized culture and the role of culture in the ordering of the market. The author argues that not only institutions but also culture matters in the ordering of the market and economic behavior. In the Occident, institutions have been pivotal in structuring and ordering the market economy and coordinating incentives of economic agents, as is emphasized by Douglas North. The author of this book argues that culture, defined as historically transmitted beliefs and values specific to each nation, may fulfill similar roles by establishing conventions and norms of behavior of individuals. Japan before the Meiji Restoration (1868) seems to be a typical case. The book presents an analysis of the formation of its internalized part of mental model, owing to religious reform in Buddhism in the thirteenth century and the consequent emergence of commerce-based growth driven by a decline in transaction costs in the Tokugawa Era, from the seventeenth through the mid-nineteenth centuries. Institutions had been largely inefficient due to serious cultural conflicts among classes, especially between the samurai and aristocrats. The relative costs of establishing and enforcing institutions were low in the Occident where internalized beliefs were based on the concept of public, by and large common among individuals; by contrast, in Japan, where internalized beliefs were strongly influenced by others nearby, that differed significantly among individuals, the costs were high because of difficulty in sharing mental models. The economic development of the Occident owed largely to the development of industrial technology nurtured under the development of various institutional devices to coordinate activities, whereas the economic growth of Japan during the Tokugawa Era was caused by the decrease in transaction costs in commercial activities owing to the standardization of conduct nurtured through the deliberate development of culture and to the efforts of small producers enhanced by religious motivation. After the Meiji Restoration, Occidental institutions and industrial technology flowed into Japan rapidly, and the Japanese enthusiastically absorbed the Occidental cultural system crystalized in Enlightenment values. At the same time, the struggle of Meiji leaders to establish national integrity and spirit was an attempt to adapt imported Occidental institutions to the traditional internalized culture and to maintain the merits of historical tradition as much as possible. The book argues that it is not easy to implement fusion or substitution of traditional internalized culture with any “advanced” culture of foreign societies.

Economic Development and International Trade

Economic Development and International Trade PDF Author: Ippei Yamazawa
Publisher: Resource Systems Institute East West Center
ISBN:
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 298

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Book Description
In a direct and easy-to-use style, the Savvy Savings Guide series offers financial advice for both your personal and professional life. With each new book, readers learn how to earn more, spend less, and save for important events such as retirement and your child's college education. From paying less on your taxes to starting a small business the Savvy Savings Guide series seeks to help you save money and succeed.

Global Economic History: A Very Short Introduction

Global Economic History: A Very Short Introduction PDF Author: Robert C. Allen
Publisher: OUP Oxford
ISBN: 019162053X
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 192

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Book Description
Why are some countries rich and others poor? In 1500, the income differences were small, but they have grown dramatically since Columbus reached America. Since then, the interplay between geography, globalization, technological change, and economic policy has determined the wealth and poverty of nations. The industrial revolution was Britain's path breaking response to the challenge of globalization. Western Europe and North America joined Britain to form a club of rich nations by pursuing four polices-creating a national market by abolishing internal tariffs and investing in transportation, erecting an external tariff to protect their fledgling industries from British competition, banks to stabilize the currency and mobilize domestic savings for investment, and mass education to prepare people for industrial work. Together these countries pioneered new technologies that have made them ever richer. Before the Industrial Revolution, most of the world's manufacturing was done in Asia, but industries from Casablanca to Canton were destroyed by western competition in the nineteenth century, and Asia was transformed into 'underdeveloped countries' specializing in agriculture. The spread of economic development has been slow since modern technology was invented to fit the needs of rich countries and is ill adapted to the economic and geographical conditions of poor countries. A few countries - Japan, Soviet Russia, South Korea, Taiwan, and perhaps China - have, nonetheless, caught up with the West through creative responses to the technological challenge and with Big Push industrialization that has achieved rapid growth through investment coordination. Whether other countries can emulate the success of East Asia is a challenge for the future. ABOUT THE SERIES: The Very Short Introductions series from Oxford University Press contains hundreds of titles in almost every subject area. These pocket-sized books are the perfect way to get ahead in a new subject quickly. Our expert authors combine facts, analysis, perspective, new ideas, and enthusiasm to make interesting and challenging topics highly readable.

Japan Transformed

Japan Transformed PDF Author: Frances Rosenbluth
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 1400835097
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 263

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Book Description
With little domestic fanfare and even less attention internationally, Japan has been reinventing itself since the 1990s, dramatically changing its political economy, from one managed by regulations to one with a neoliberal orientation. Rebuilding from the economic misfortunes of its recent past, the country retains a formidable economy and its political system is healthier than at any time in its history. Japan Transformed explores the historical, political, and economic forces that led to the country's recent evolution, and looks at the consequences for Japan's citizens and global neighbors. The book examines Japanese history, illustrating the country's multiple transformations over the centuries, and then focuses on the critical and inexorable advance of economic globalization. It describes how global economic integration and urbanization destabilized Japan's postwar policy coalition, undercut the ruling Liberal Democratic Party's ability to buy votes, and paved the way for new electoral rules that emphasized competing visions of the public good. In contrast to the previous system that pitted candidates from the same party against each other, the new rules tether policymaking to the vast swath of voters in the middle of the political spectrum. Regardless of ruling party, Japan's politics, economics, and foreign policy are on a neoliberal path. Japan Transformed combines broad context and comparative analysis to provide an accurate understanding of Japan's past, present, and future.