Focusing on the US, Great Britain, Mexico, Australia, the Republic of China, and Thailand, the six essays in this volume explore the benefits and problems Japanese foreign direct investment has created, particularly in terms of recipient countries' employment, foreign trade, acquisition of new technology and management skills, economic output, resource development, and the all- important public opinion. Annotation copyright by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

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.

This book discusses Japan’s long-term economic recession and provides remedies for that recession that are useful for other Asian economies. The book addresses why Japan’s economy has stagnated since the bursting of its economic bubble in the 1990s. Its empirical analysis challenges the beliefs of some economists, such as Paul Krugman, that the Japanese economy is caught in a liquidity trap. This book argues that Japan’s economic stagnation stems from a vertical “investment–saving” (IS) curve rather than a liquidity trap. The impact of fiscal policy has declined drastically, and the Japanese economy faces structural problems rather than a temporary downturn. These structural problems have many causes: an aging demographic (a problem that is frequently overlooked), an over-reliance by local governments on transfers from the central government, and Basel capital requirements that have made Japanese banks reluctant to lend money to start-up businesses and small and medium-sized enterprises. This latter issue has discouraged Japanese innovation and technological progress. All these issues are addressed empirically and theoretically, and several remedies for Japan’s long-lasting recession are provided. This volume will be of interest to researchers and policy makers not only in Japan but also the People’s Republic of China, many countries in the eurozone, and the United States, which may face similar challenges in the future.

Criticism of current Japanese macroeconomic and financial policies is so wide spread that the reasons for it are assumed to be self-evident. In this volume, Adam Posen explains in depth why a shift in Japanese fiscal and monetary policies, as well as financial reform, would be in Japan's self-interest. He demonstrates that Japanese economic stagnation in the 1990s is the result of mistaken fiscal austerity and financial laissez-faire rather than a structural decline of the "Japan Model." The author outlines a program for putting the country back on the path to solid economic growth - primarily through permanent tax cuts and monetary stabilization - and draws broader lessons from the recent Japanese policy actions that led to the country's continuing stagnation.

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.

After World War II, Japan reinvented itself as a shipbuilding powerhouse and began its rapid ascent in the global economy. Its expansion strategy integrated raw material procurement, the redesign of global transportation infrastructure, and domestic industrialization. In this authoritative and engaging study, Stephen G. Bunker and Paul S. Ciccantell identify the key factors in Japan’s economic growth and the effects this growth had on the reorganization of significant sectors of the global economy. Bunker and Ciccantell discuss what drove Japan’s economic expansion, how Japan globalized the work economy to support it, and why this spectacular growth came to a dramatic halt in the 1990s. Drawing on studies of ore mining, steel making, corporate sector reorganization, and port/rail development, they provide valuable insight into technical processes as well as specific patterns of corporate investment. East Asia and the Global Economy introduces a theory of “new historical materialism” that explains the success of Japan and other world industrial powers. Here, the authors assert that the pattern of Japan’s ascent is essential for understanding China’s recent path of economic growth and dominance and anticipating what the future may hold.

As the title suggests, this is an ambitious book. Broad in scope and rich in detail, it examines the rise and fall of Japanese foreign direct investment (FDI) in nearly two dozen industries, from electronics and automobile manufacturing to real estate and construction services, in almost every region of the world over the past half century or more. The result is an encyclopedic volume (459 pages with index). . . useful for East Asian business scholars or those interested in the overseas activities of Japanese firms. Farrell has written. . . a sweeping survey of Japanese FDI. Walter Hatch, Journal of Japanese Studies Roger Farrell has written a weighty compendium on Japanese direct foreign investment. At over 450 pages it covers the full array of Japan s diverse industries and sectors, from fisheries and lumber to steel and automobiles, and in the service industries from banking to telecommunications. Apart from the breadth of coverage, this work is even more remarkable considering that Japanese multinationals and their overseas investments have been largely under the radar of social scientists of late, especially so since the ascent of China in the early years of the present decade. David W. Edgington, Growth and Change Enhanced with indexes, appendixes, and editorial opinions on the subject, Japanese Investment in the World Economy is a complete and comprehensive scholarly reference, ideal for college and community library economics collections. Midwest Book Review The Economics Shelf This book examines Japanese Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) in the world economy over more than five decades. It provides a unique focus on the internationalisation experience of selected industries, such as forestry, textiles, electronics, motor vehicles, steel and services as well as case studies of individual firms. Roger Farrell considers the theoretical explanations for Japanese FDI and particular motivations which have been an ongoing rationale for FDI, including: energy and resource security the theme of retaining market access the relocation of manufacturing to retain international competitiveness withdrawal after the bubble economy the new phase of investment in the 2000s. Japanese Investment in the World Economy is distinctive in that it examines overseas investment by firms in the primary, manufacturing and services sectors over the period in which the Japanese economy became the second largest in the world. The book provides a succinct overview of Japanese FDI of interest to professionals and students of business, economics, international relations, politics and Japanese culture.

Focusing on the US, Great Britain, Mexico, Australia, the Republic of China, and Thailand, the six essays in this volume explore the benefits and problems Japanese foreign direct investment has created, particularly in terms of recipient countries' employment, foreign trade, acquisition of new technology and management skills, economic output, resource development, and the all- important public opinion. Annotation copyright by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

As labor input in Japan shrinks with population aging, capital accumulation and productivity gains will drive growth over the medium-term. At the same time, a changing global landscape calls for a shift in export-oriented investment toward new markets and a new generation of products, as well as increased investment by domestically-oriented firms. What policies could be adopted to help firms adjust to the imperatives of the post-crisis global economy and boost medium-term growth? Using disaggregated data, this paper investigates the determinants of investment and R&D spending by Japanese firms. The results suggest that policies could usefully focus on four areas. First, raising the return on investment, including through reforms to the tax code. Second, decreasing uncertainty through improved risk management by firms and by bolstering the business climate. Third, improving SME access to finance, notably by encouraging venture capital investment in innovative areas and more risk-based lending. And fourth, reducing excess leverage and supporting corporate restructuring to enable new investments to flourish.