Institutional and Technological Change in Japan's Economy

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.

Janet Hunter is Saji Professor of Economic History at the London School of Economics and Political Science. She has published widely on modern Japanese economic history, particularly on the development of the female labour market, and is working on a history of the country's communications. Cornelia Storz is Professor of Japanese Economics at the Faculty of Economics and the Centre for Japanese Studies, University of Marburg. Her research focuses on the comparison of economic systems; genesis and change in institutions (especially institutional change in Japan); comparative institutional analysis; entrepreneurship and the modern Japanese economy.

1. Introduction: Economic and Institutional Change in Japan Janet Hunter and Cornelia Storz 2. Technology and Change in Japan's Modern Copper Mining Industry Patricia Sippel 3. Professionalism as Power: Tajiri Inajiro and the Modernisation of Meiji Finance Katalin Ferber 4. Investment, Adaptation and Innovation: Genesis and Growth of Beer Corporations in Prewar Japan Harald Fuess 5. Managing Female Textile Workers: an Industry in Transition, 1945-1975 Helen Macnaughtan 6. Japan's Industrial Organisation in Motion: Keiretsu at the Turning Point Andreas Moerke 7. Global Finance, Democracy and the State in Japan Takaaki Suzuki 8. Changes and Crisis in the Japanese Banking Industry Mariusz Krawczyk 9. International Mergers and Acquisitions with Japanese Participation: Two Cases from the Automotive Industry Sigrun Caspary 10. Environmental Protection and the Impact of Institutional Change Ilona Koester 11. Changes in Conducting Foresight in Japan Kerstin Cuhls