Financial Stabilization in Meiji Japan
Financial Stabilization in Meiji Japan

Author: Steven J. Ericson

Publisher: Cornell University Press

Published: 2020-02-15

Total Pages: 141

ISBN-13: 1501746936

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With a new look at the 1880s financial reforms in Japan, Steven J. Ericson's Financial Stabilization in Meiji Japan overturns widely held views of the program carried out by Finance Minister Matsukata Masayoshi. As Ericson shows, rather than constituting an orthodox financial-stabilization program—a sort of precursor of the "neoliberal" reforms promoted by the IMF in the 1980s and 1990s—Matsukata's policies differed in significant ways from both classical economic liberalism and neoliberal orthodoxy. The Matsukata financial reform has become famous largely for the wrong reasons, and Ericson sets the record straight. He shows that Matsukata intended to pursue fiscal retrenchment and budget-balancing when he became finance minister in late 1881. Various exigencies, including foreign military crises and a worsening domestic depression, compelled him instead to increase spending by running deficits and floating public bonds. Though he drastically reduced the money supply, he combined the positive and contractionary policies of his immediate predecessors to pull off a program of "expansionary austerity" paralleling state responses to financial crisis elsewhere in the world both then and now. Through a new and much-needed recalibration of this pivotal financial reform, Financial Stabilization in Meiji Japan demonstrates that, in several ways, ranging from state-led export promotion to the creation of a government-controlled central bank, Matsukata advanced policies that were more in line with a nationalist, developmentalist approach than with a liberal economic one. Ericson shows that Matsukata Masayoshi was far from a rigid adherent of classical economic liberalism.

Financial Reform in Japan
Financial Reform in Japan

Author: Maximilian Hall

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

Published: 1998

Total Pages: 248

ISBN-13:

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This text provides a detailed analysis of the post-war evolution of financial markets and financial regulation in Japan, paying special attention to the period since 1975.

Financial Policy and Central Banking in Japan
Financial Policy and Central Banking in Japan

Author: Thomas F. Cargill

Publisher: MIT Press

Published: 2001-01-03

Total Pages: 205

ISBN-13: 026226210X

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This book analyzes how the bank-dominated financial system—a key element of the oft-heralded "Japanese economic model"—broke down in the 1990s and spawned sweeping reforms. Japan's financial institutions and policy underwent remarkable change in the past decade. The country began the 1990s with a heavily regulated financial system managed by an unchallenged Ministry of Finance and ended the decade with a Big Bang financial market reform, a complete restructuring of its regulatory financial institutions, and an independent central bank. These reforms have taken place amid recession and rising unemployment, collapsing asset prices, a looming banking crisis, and the lowest interest rates in the industrial world. This book analyzes how the bank-dominated financial system—a key element of the oft-heralded "Japanese economic model"—broke down in the 1990s and spawned sweeping reforms. It documents the sources of the Japanese economic stagnation of the 1990s, the causes of the financial crisis, the slow and initially limited policy response to banking problems, and the reform program that followed. It also evaluates the new financial structure and reforms at the Bank of Japan in light of the challenges facing the Japanese economy. These challenges range from conducting monetary policy in a zero-interest rate environment characterized by a "liquidity trap" to managing consolidation in the Japanese banking sector against the backdrop of increasing international competition.

Banking Policy in Japan
Banking Policy in Japan

Author: William Tsutsui

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2010-11-01

Total Pages: 319

ISBN-13: 1136928405

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The unique Japanese banking system has contributed greatly to Japan’s post-war economic advance by investing aggressively in industry and by supporting close government-business relations. The banking sector might not have come to assume such a significant role, however, had American efforts to reform Japanese finance during the Occupation (1945-52) been successful. How Japan’s banking system maintained continuity of development and avoided the occupiers’ attempts at "democratisation" and "Americanisation" is the subject of this book. It explores why the Americans were committed to reform, the reasons they failed and how important the maintenance of the financial status quo was to the subsequent development of Japan’s "miracle" economy.

Structural Reform in Japan
Structural Reform in Japan

Author: Eisuke Sakakibara

Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield

Published: 2003-12-22

Total Pages: 220

ISBN-13: 9780815796268

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In this unusually candid book, Japan's former top financial diplomat asserts the urgent need for wholesale structural reform to revitalize the long-stagnant Japanese economy. Eisuke Sakakibara, whose influence over global currency markets earned him the nickname of "Mr. Yen," envisions a social and economic revolution that encompasses all sectors of Japanese society. Whereas previous analyses of Japanese policies of the past decade focus narrowly on such issues as nonperforming assets and deregulation, Sakakibara provides a new perspective. Japan's economic problems are structural, rather than cyclical, according to Sakakibara. Profitable investment opportunities are hard to find in the dysfunctional corporate sector, where costs are high and income continues to decline. The country's entrenched power elite—the Liberal Democratic Party, the bureaucracy, and vested interest groups—are threatened by reform efforts. It will be difficult to restore economic health to Japan until its political leaders are able to break the grip of this "iron triangle" and implement aggressive, widespread reforms. This book furthers the understanding that structural reform or new institution building in Japan needs an all-encompassing approach that includes the various sectors of Japanese society and the economy. Only with this kind of understanding can pragmatic and meaningful structural reform in Japan be implemented.

Crisis and Change in the Japanese Financial System
Crisis and Change in the Japanese Financial System

Author: Takeo Hoshi

Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media

Published: 2000-05-31

Total Pages: 350

ISBN-13: 9780792377832

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Specialists in various aspects of the Japanese financial industry describe, analyze, and evaluate the crisis that began with bursting real east bubbles in the early 1990s and resulting non-performing loans, delay by regulatory authorities and the banks themselves, a decompressive deregulation in 1996, major reforms in 1998 and early 1999 that made $500 billion of government funds available, and the resulting lack of regulatory control. In the context of the transition from a bank-centered and relationship-based system to market-based and competitive, they investigate why the banks got into such serious trouble, why the Ministry of Finance lost its immense power, how financial regulation will further change the industry and the huge government financial institutions and postal savings, and what some broader implications are of the transitions. Most of the 12 studies are revised from presentations at an October 1998 conference in New York. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

Institutional Change in Japan
Institutional Change in Japan

Author: Magnus Blomström

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2006-08-21

Total Pages: 415

ISBN-13: 113418056X

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This is a new analysis of recent changes in important Japanese institutions. It addresses the origin, development, and recent adaptation of core institutions, including financial institutions, corporate governance, lifetime employment, and the amakudari system. After four decades of rapid economic growth in Japan, the 1990s saw the country enter a prolonged period of economic stagnation. Policy reforms were initially half-hearted, and businesses were slow to restructure as the global economy changed. The lagging economy has been impervious to aggressive fiscal stimulus measures and has been plagued by ongoing price deflation for years. Japan’s struggle has called into question the ability of the country’s economic institutions, originally designed to support factor accumulation and rapid development, to adapt to the new economic environment of the twenty-first century. This book discusses both historical and international comparisons including Meiji Japan, and recent economic and financial reforms in Korea, Scandinavia, Switzerland, and New Zealand, placing the current institutional changes in perspective. The contributors argue that, contrary to conventional wisdom that Japanese institutions have remained relatively rigid, there has been significant institutional change over the last decade.