The Political Economy Of Japan

This book takes an interdisciplinary approach to one of Japan's thorniest public policy issues: why are women increasingly forgoing motherhood? At the heart of the matter lies a paradox: although the overall trend among rich countries is for fertility to decrease as female labor participation increases, gender-friendly countries resist the trend. Conversely, gender-unfriendly countries have lower fertility rates than they would have if they changed their labor markets to encourage the hiring of women—and therein lies Japan's problem. The authors argue that the combination of an inhospitable labor market for women and insufficient support for childcare pushes women toward working harder to promote their careers, to the detriment of childbearing. Controversial and enlightening, this book provides policy recommendations for solving not just Japan's fertility issue but those of other modern democracies facing a similar crisis.

This book explores how Japan balances her internal political economy with the external process of internationalisation by examining the following aspects of Japanese economic development planning: industrial policies and financial system; political economy in relation to the otherAsian countries; role in the global economy; and structural changes to Japan's post-Cold War economic development. This new edition tackles the problems and issues for Japan in the post-Sep 11 period, the election of Koizumi as prime minister, and the entry of China into the WTO. the author suggests that Japan may need to be more involved in the East Asian political economy at a time when the United States is more and more involved in the war against terrorism.

The contributions in this book provide a unique view of its emergence and growth in a number of different national settings in an area of the Third World where the industry is most advanced. In The Political Economy of Japanese Monetary Policy, Cargill, Hutchison, and Ito investigate the formulation and execution of monetary and financial policies in Japan within a broad technical, political, and institutional context.Their emphasis is on the period since the collapse of the Bretton Woods system of fixed exchange rates in the early 1970s, and on the effects of policies and institutions in shaping the modern Japanese economy. The authors present basic themes and recent developments, as well as their own research findings.They also review and integrate the large literature in the area. They consider theoretical arguments and empirical evidence for each topic discussed. Topics covered include Japan's low inflation record (despite the central bank's lack of formal independence from the government); politically motivated business cycles and the timing of elections; exchange rate policy and international policy coordination; the historical development of central banking; Japan's "bubble economy" of the 1980s; and the causes, magnitude, and regulatory responses to Japan's banking and financial crisis of the 1990s.

Beginning in the late 19th century this study examines the historical developments of Japan's contemporary political economy paying particular attention to the changes that have taken place from the bottom up

The first authoritative study of Japan's environmental problems by the acclaimed environmental economist, placing environmental issues within a socioeconomic context. In providing an historical account of environmental disruption in Japan, the author takes a number of key cases of industrial pollution in the pre-war and post-war periods and illustrates the effectiveness of taking into account socioeconomic affairs. Finally, he proposes a set of concrete countermeasures against environmental problems, applicable to all developed countries today, aimed at achieving a new 'quality of life'. First published in 2000, this title is part of the Bloomsbury Academic Collections series.

This book deals with the major problems that Japan and East Asian countries have faced during the turbulent years of their reconstruction and development from 1945 to the present time. The Development Report of the World Bank 1993 on the same subject was given the subtitle East Asian Miracle. I have never thought, however, that the impressive achievement of East Asian development was a miracle in any sense. Indeed, as this book tries to show, Japanese and Asian development has been the fruit of the sweat, tears, and blood of all East Asian nations. The efforts and sacrifices involved in the process of their development after World War II are no less than those during the war itself. One should not overlook the fact that almost all the peoples of East Asia have achieved not just economic development but indeed new nation-building after hundreds of years of coloni al submission. It is my assertion in this book that even economists' analyses of Asian development should pay attention to not only the logos but also the pathos of develop ment in this last half of twentieth century. Ever since I became the director of the Center for Southeast Asian Studies at Kyoto University in 1969, I have written extensively in English as well as in Japanese on the various problems arising in the Japanese and other Asian economies.

Two powers in East Asia today stand to define the region's economic and commercial future: Japan, which rose in a spectacular industrial burst to become at present the world's second largest economy; and China, which is rapidly advancing towards a market economy under the watchful eye of the world. While much has been made of Japan and China’s particular economic institutions and developmental paths, few works analyze them in a comparative framework. Including contributions from leading academics, the text focuses on the period from the 1980s to the onset of the 2000s, reviewing the experiences of Japan and China across the areas of development, trade, investment, finance and technology. Drawing on a combination of official documents, economic statistics, case studies and original fieldwork, this book will give political scientists, political economists, business concerns, and policy analysts a firmer grasp of the role Japan and China stand to play in the world political economy.

This study provides up-to-date coverage of the most important domestic and external political and economic influences on Japanese trade policy, as well as the evolutionary dynamics of that policy in the post-war period.