A thorough empirical and theoretical analysis of the Japanese main bank system, this book also examines the relevance of the system as a model for developing market economies and transforming socialist economies the world over. The basic characteristics of the main bank system are examined here: its roots, development, and role in the heyday of its rapid growth, as well as its performance, strengths and weaknesses. The work goes on to look at how the system has changed over the last two decades. The contributors conclude that banking-based systems are in most cases the most appropriate for...

This collection of papers stems from a recent World Bank project focused upon the contentious issue of whether government has played any positive role in the success of the so-called "high-performing" Asian economies. It goes beyond the influential World Bank volume The East Asian Miracle to chart a middle ground that recognizes diversity among the different East Asian economies, as well as the evolutionary nature of government intervention.

This volume brings together the research of many of the world's leading specialists on the Japanese economy to assess how Japan's distinctive economic institutions have operated in the past and how their evolution in the face of changing domestic and international circumstance s will shape the prospects for the Japanese economy in the 21st century.

This volume presents historical, contemporary, and theoretical perspectives on the role of local communities and social norms in the economic development process. Using historical evidence combined with recent developments in institutional economics involving game theory and contracts, it establishes that communities can enhance the development of a market economy under certain circumstances -- and sheds light on what those circumstances are.

This book uses comparative institutional analysis to explain differences in national economic performance. Countries have their own rules for corporate governance and they have different market arrangements; and these differences in rules and organization affect the way firms behave. Countries also tend to develop conventions of organizational architechture of firms, whether their hierarchies are functional, horizontal, or decentralized. This affects the way in which they process information, and information management is increasingly seen as being of crucial importance to a firm's...

This book is not another parable of Japan's economic success; it provides rich and systematic descriptions of Japanese microeconomic institutions and interprets their workings in terms familiar to Western economists. A systematic, in-depth analysis of Japanese institutions of this kind has never been available before. In making his comparative analysis of the Japanese system, the author critically examines conventional notions about the microstructure of the market economy that have strongly shaped and influenced economists' approach to industrial organization. While these notions may...

This collection of papers stems from a recent World Bank project focused upon the contentious issue of whether government has played any positive role in the success of the so-called "high-performing" Asian economies. It goes beyond the influential World Bank volume The East Asian Miracle to chart a middle ground that recognizes diversity among the different East Asian economies, as well as the evolutionary nature of government intervention.

Debates regarding corporate governance have become increasingly important in Japan as the post-war model of bank-based, stakeholder-oriented corporate governance faces the new pressures associated with globalization and growing investor demands for shareholder value. Bringing together a group of leading scholars from economics, law, sociology and management studies, this book looks at how the Japanese approach to corporate governance and the firm have changed in the post-bubble era. The contributions offer a unique empirical exploration of why and how Japanese firms are reshaping their...

This collection of essays from eminent scholars discusses different phases and measures of economic development, evaluating the success of national economic transitions and providing valuable policy lessons for developing economies.

Drawing on behavioural, experimental and neoclassical economics, this volume brings together eminent academics and practitioners to provide working macroeconomic models and explore the social norms governing a post-crisis financial world.