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.

This book analyzes the modern trend in the Japanese M and A market. It reveals from different perspectives the process of convergence to a new monitoring model of the corporation: "the market for corporate control". The book contains a systematic survey of all relevant economic and legal information in this field. Analysis of 17 recent cases of hostile takeover is presented.

Written by prominent scholars in the field, this is an account of the Japanese firm and its sources of success. Containing both theoretical and empirical work, the book ranges across labour and information economics, finance, organizational theory, and others.

This is the second edition of this highly regarded comparative overview of corporate law. It argues that the main function of corporate law is to address conflicts of interests and that, despite economic and social diversity, legal strategies employed across jurisdictions are surprisingly similar.

Ten specialists in the fields of tax law and public finance from Japan, the Netherlands, China, South Korea, Taiwan, Indonesia, and Vietnam recently gathered in Leiden, the Netherlands to present papers and give lectures on tax law in those countries for the symposium `Tax Law in East and Southeast Asia Towards the 21st Century.' The meeting fostered the exchange of information on recent reforms of tax systems, with participants examining both differences and similarities and discussing further planned or necessary reforms for each country in East and Southeast Asia on the threshold of the 21st century. The papers collected in this volume were originally prepared for the conference. After the conference, contributors revised their papers on the basis of the discussions conducted. Giving due consideration to the comparison of tax systems in these areas, these revised papers emphasise themes such as tax structure, especially that of direct and indirect taxes; intergovernmental fiscal relationships; and recent reforms to and problems of tax systems. The result: an extremely useful and informative work which covers ground rarely covered before. Legal and other tax practitioners as well as academics will find this volume of great value.

Japan is considered the third-largest economy in the world and a highly developed free-market economy. From the European contact in the 16th century to the Abenomics age, Japan has experienced fluctuations from rapid economic growth to the economic bubble crisis in the 20th century. Under Shinzo Abe administration, the government is keen to bring out a forward and positive outlook for the Japanese people and economy. Japan can achieve this only by reforming the country’s economic system, accomplishing substantial domestic-led growth and opening up Japan’s markets further. While the Heisei era was a turbulent period for the country’s economy, the Reiwa era that began in 2019 promises a new economic dawn to overcome decades of economic stagnation.