An in-depth analysis of conventional notions for basic characteristics of the Japanese market economy's microstructure that have significantly influenced economists' approaches to industrial organization.
This is a compilation of the proceedings and papers presented at an international conference on the organization of economic institutions in a dynamic society which includes detailed comment and discussion sections following each lecture.
Bernie Sanders’ socialist advocacy in the United States, communist China’s economic successes and a Marxist revival are inspiring many to muse about improved strategies for building superior socialist futures. Socialist Economic Systems provides an objective record of socialism’s promises and performance during 1820–2022, identifies a feasible path forward and provides a rigorous analytic framework for the comparison of economic systems. The book opens by surveying pre-industrial utopias from Plato to Thomas More, and libertarian communal designs for superior living. It plumbs all aspects of the revolutionary and democratic socialist political movements that emerged after 1870 and considers the comparative economic, political and social performance of the USSR and others from the Bolshevik Revolution onwards. The book also provides case studies for all revolutionary Marxist–Leninist regimes, and supplementary discussions of Mondragon cooperatives, Israeli kibbutzim, Nordic corporatism and European democratic socialism. It investigates the theoretical and practical complexities of command-planning, reform communism, market communism, worker economic management and egalitarianism. It examines communism as an engine of economic growth, and a mechanism for improving people’s quality of existence, including living standards, labor self-governance, egalitarianism, social justice, and prevention of crimes against humanity before addressing the perennial question of what needs to be done next. A suggested path forward is elaborated drawing lessons from the warts-and-all historical performance of socialist economies during 1917–2022 and failed socialist prophesy. The evidence indicates that the key to 21st-century socialism success lies in empowering workers of all descriptions to govern democratically for their mutual protection and welfare without the extraneous imposition of priorities imposed by other movements. The book is essential reading for anyone interested in socialism, political economy, comparative economic systems, and political and social history.
This book systematically provides a prospective integrated approach for complexity social science in its view of statistical physics and mathematics, with an impressive collection of the knowledge and expertise of leading researchers from all over the world. The book mainly covers both finitary methods of statistical equilibrium and data-driven analysis by econophysics. The late Professor Masanao Aoki of UCLA, who passed away at the end of July 2018, in his later years dedicated himself to the reconstruction of macroeconomics mainly in terms of statistical physics. Professor Aoki, who was already an IEEE fellow, was also named an Econometric Society Fellow in 1979. Until the early 1990s, however, his contributions were focused on the new developments of a novel algorithm for the time series model and their applications to economic data. Those contributions were undoubtedly equivalent to the Nobel Prize-winning work of Granger's "co-integration method". After the publications of his New Approaches to Macroeconomic Modeling and Modeling Aggregate Behavior and Fluctuations in Economics, both published by Cambridge University Press, in 1996 and 2002, respectively, his contributions rapidly became known and spread throughout the field. In short, these new works challenged econophysicists to develop evolutionary stochastic dynamics, multiple equilibria, and externalities as field effects and revolutionized the stochastic views of interacting agents. In particular, the publication of Reconstructing Macroeconomics, also by Cambridge University Press (2007), in cooperation with Hiroshi Yoshikawa, further sharpened the process of embodying “a perspective from statistical physics and combinatorial stochastic processes” in economic modeling. Interestingly, almost concurrently with Prof. Aoki’s newest development, similar approaches were appearing. Thus, those who were working in the same context around the world at that time came together, exchanging their results during the past decade. In memory of Prof. Aoki, this book has been planned by authors who followed him to present the most advanced outcomes of his heritage.
The contributors to this book, from the US and Japan, explore the main issues involved in the international trade, foreign direct investment, and macro/financial relations of the United States and Japan and provide guidance to policy makers for measures to help overcome Japan's economic stagnation since the early 1990s. The book is divided into three parts. Part I contains an empirical analysis of trade diversion under the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), a theoretical analysis of time in determining the structure and effects of trade with an application to Japan, and an empirical analysis of Japan's changing import behavior. Part II is focused on foreign direct investment (FDI), trade, and the behavior and structure of Japanese firms. Part III deals with macro/financial issues of current interest and importance in Japan. The analytical focus of the chapters is intended to enhance the understanding of the issues addressed and to provide some guidance to policymakers in the design of measures that will improve economic efficiency and welfare and help to overcome the economic stagnation that Japan has experienced in the past decade or more.
China registered double-digit GDP growth for more than three decades. Recently, the rate has slowed down considerably. The slow growth period, which Chinese policymakers refer to as the 'new-normal', has created enormous curiosity among scholars and policymakers. In particular, scholars often tend to project if China is destined to follow Japan's fate. Insufficient reforms in the banking sector in commensuration with the real economy in Japan resulted in an unprecedented financial catastrophe. Similarly, an asymmetric development between the Chinese banking sector and the real economy is observed. This leads to an interesting question: is China destined to meet Japan's legacy? This Element attempts to answer this question. In so doing, it delves deep into the banking sector reforms of China. The Element concludes that China is not on course to meet an immediate financial chaos, but the country needs further banking reforms to avoid a potential crisis.
Discover how Japan’s new leadership model has transformed its top companies and created a new paradigm for business success In Resolute Japan, Waseda University’s Jusuke J. J. Ikegami and the Wharton School’s Harbir Singh and Michael Useem reveal a new leadership model that has led Japan’s corporations to make a stunning comeback. In the process, they share what they have learned from interviews with more than 100 CEOs and top executives of Japan’s largest and most influential companies, including Hitachi, Honda, Mitsubishi, Nissan, NTT, and Panasonic. In this book, you will discover: + How Japan’s new leadership model has led to superior performance in the stock market and beyond; + The core principles and practices that characterize Japan’s new leadership model and how they differ from the old models; + How Japan’s new leadership model enables companies to balance multiple and often conflicting objectives, such as shareholder value and social responsibility, short-term results and long-term growth, and agility and stability; + How Japan’s new leadership model fosters innovation, resilience, and competitiveness in a rapidly changing global environment; + Why, even in an environment of macroeconomic stagnation due to economic policies at the national level, individual companies can achieve sustainable development through this new leadership model; and + How Japan’s new leadership model can inspire and inform business leaders in the West and elsewhere who are facing similar challenges and opportunities. Resolute Japan offers a rare and insightful perspective on the new corporate fabric of Japan, one that is sure to both challenge and enlighten leaders around the world.
Beyond the Cubicle looks at the hidden ramifications of job insecurity upon workers' intimate lives, personal relationships, and crises of identity and self-worth. The broad and wide-ranging essays explore how changes in work have altered our emotions, reworked the interplay of gender, race and class, and contributed to a contemporary radical individualism in variety of contexts.
“This is a remarkable book. Focusing upon Korea’s Hyundai Motor Company, it provides an original account of the success of this company in the global automobile industry. Theoretically informed, cognisant of the academic literature, and insightful at every turn, this book will appeal to scholars across the social sciences including economics, economic geography, and economic sociology. The authors have key insights that will resonate with scholars interested in the global industrial champions of the 21st century. A wonderful achievement.” —Emeritus Professor Gordon L Clark, Oxford University, the UK “’Agile against lean’ is a highly inspiring book for researchers and practitioners. It provides unique insights into the rise of Korean automotive companies, their production systems, and the political economy in which they are embedded. And it develops thought-provoking arguments about how authoritarian experimentalism shaped the agile production systems in the Korean automotive sector.” — Professor Dr. Martin Krzywdzinski, WZB (Berlin Social Science Center), Germany This book attempts to pry open the ‘black box’ of compressed growth for Hyundai Motor since the 1997 Asian Financial Crisis, with the company’s being on the verge of falling in the ‘middle-ranked carmaker’s trap in the 1990s, and critically examines the dual and contradictory nature of this leapfrogging catch-up instead of simply focusing on the company’s success story. This book presents the novel theoretical and empirical characteristics of Hyundai Motor’s ‘agile’ production system based on ‘authoritarian experimentalism’ characterized by the ability of engineers to solve problems in an improvisational manner, skill-saving work organization and segmented labor, and extended quasi-vertical suppliers’ relationships under the chaebol corporate governance. Hyung Je Jo is an emeritus professor of social science at the University of Ulsan, South Korea. Jun Ho Jeong is a professor in the college of social sciences at Kangwon National University, South Korea. Chulsik Kim is an assistant professor in the division of social science at the Academy of Korean Studies, South Korea