Yoshiro Miwa – författare

Several years have passed since the 'store wars' over barriers to foreign products at Japanese distribution firms. Yet among English-speaking readers, how these firms operate remains a puzzle. In this book, the best Japanese scholars in their fields attempt to unravel that puzzle. Avoiding culture-based explanations, they employ a systematic and rigorous economic logic---yet, since they also avoid mathematical notation, the argument remains accessible to generalist readers.Collectively, the authors make four basic points:* Within a country, distribution is less similar than it appears. Not only does it vary enormously across industries, but it often varies within a given industry as well.* Across countries, distribution is less diverse than it appears. Although appearances sometimes suggest major cross-national contrasts, on more careful analysis the differences often disappear. * Distribution sometimes depends on the product involved. Because distribution functions as the principal means by which manufacturers acquire information about consumer preferences, the character of distribution can depend crucially both on demand patterns and on manufacturing technology. * In the absence of regulatory intervention, distribution generally will be efficient and non-exclusionary. Regulation usually introduces inefficiency and often creates barriers to entry. Importantly, however, the targets of exclusion will less often involve foreign than domestic competitors.To illustrate these points, the authors draw on both analyses that cross various sectors and analyses that are specific to sectors; they study both regulated and unregulated industries; they describe industries with extensive imports, industries with extensive exports, and industries with neither; they examine the effect of technological change; and they introduce a variety of case studies, from agriculture and automobiles to electrical appliances and apparel.

For Western economists and journalists, the most distinctive facet of the post-war Japanese business world has been the keiretsu, or the insular business alliances among powerful corporations. Within keiretsu groups, argue these observers, firms preferentially trade, lend money, take and receive technical and financial assistance, and cement their ties through cross-shareholding agreements. In The Fable of the Keiretsu, Yoshiro Miwa and J. Mark Ramseyer demonstrate that all this talk is really just urban legend. In their insightful analysis, the authors show that the very idea of the keiretsu was created and propagated by Marxist scholars in post-war Japan. Western scholars merely repatriated the legend to show the culturally contingent nature of modern economic analysis. Laying waste to the notion of keiretsu, the authors debunk several related “facts” as well: that Japanese firms maintain special arrangements with a “main bank,” that firms are systematically poorly managed, and that the Japanese government guided post-war growth. In demolishing these long-held assumptions, they offer one of the few reliable chronicles of the realities of Japanese business.

Yoshiro Miwa asks whether a state can correct market failures and in particular critically analyses the performance of the Japanese economy as a result of state intervention within it. In order to examine the capacity of the state to promote growth, Miwa examines the Japanese machine tool industry, the government's role in promoting this sector and government efforts to achieve growth in small and medium sized enterprises in Japan.

Yoshiro Miwa asks whether a state can correct market failures and in particular critically analyses the performance of the Japanese economy as a result of state intervention within it. In order to examine the capacity of the state to promote growth, Miwa examines the Japanese machine tool industry, the government's role in promoting this sector and government efforts to achieve growth in small and medium sized enterprises in Japan.

The great successes of the Japanese economy have often been attributed to differences in the Japanese economic system. Employing an exhaustive investigation of the roles of the government and banks, firms and networks, and workers and managers, Yoshiro Miwa illustrates that the standard principles of economics explain the dominant patterns of Japanese economic phenomena. Debunking many long-held myths, Miwa deftly propels readers to a fuller, more accurate understanding of the Japanese economy.

Although most economists maintain a mistrust of a government's goals when it intervenes in an economy, many continue to trust its actual ability. They retain, in other words, a faith in state competence. For this faith, they adduce no evidence. Sharing little skepticism about the government's ability, they continue to expect the best of governmental intervention. To study government competence in World War II Japan offers an intriguing laboratory. In this book, Yoshiro Miwa shows that the Japanese government did not conduct requisite planning for the war by any means. It made its choices on an ad hoc basis and the war itself quickly became a dead end. That the government planned for the war incompetently casts doubts on the accounts of Japanese government leadership more generally.

Yoshiro Miwa asks whether a state can correct market failures and in particular critically analyses the performance of the Japanese economy as a result of state intervention within it. In order to examine the capacity of the state to promote growth, Miwa examines the Japanese machine tool industry, the government''s role in promoting this sector and government efforts to achieve growth in small and medium sized enterprises in Japan.