Re-regulating Japanese transactions

Abstract

In the wake of Japan's recession during the 1990s and its diminished prospects for recovery, political scientists, economists and lawyers have been forced to revise their views of how the Japanese economy operates. An early casualty has been the characterisation of Japan as a developmental state, or what has been called the Japan Inc. model (Johnson 1995; cf. Carlile and Tilton 1998:1- 15). Pempel (1997, 1998, 1999) has argued that Japan is in fact experiencing a 'regime shift', in which its operating rules and dominant institutions are undergoing fundamental change. We still have, however, a very incomplete picture of the targets, scope and forms of such change. By focusing on the catalysts and outcomes of institutional change in particular instances, we are likely to be better equipped to both analyze a changed Japanese economy, and to formulate predictive and comparative models (see, for example, Aoki 2001). Show more