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.

International trade continues to expand robustly in East Asia and elsewhere, but global trade negotiations have collapsed and globalization is widely criticized. In this book, the participants of the thirtieth Pacific Trade and Development Conference--including the then-Director General of the World Trade Organization, and leading government officials, academics and executives from a dozen major Pacific Rim economies--debate whether global negotiations have ended once and for all, or are suffering temporarily from 'globalization fatigue;' whether East Asia's new regional partnerships will advance or undermine the global trading system; and whether the region's trade tensions with the United States will intensify or subside. They provide new empirical evidence on how trade affects the distribution of income, the location of pollution-intensive industries, the causes of 'outsourcing, ' the structure of the intellectual property regime, and international security. And they probe the implications of adjustment to globalization: how can countries reap the benefits of trade while controlling the risks faced by the poor and, perhaps more importantly, the politically strong? Challenges to the Global Trading System is an invaluable resource for students and scholars of Asia-Pacific studies, international relations and development studies, as well as those with a more general interest in Asian studies.

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.

Relative to the other habited places on our planet, Hawai'i has a very short history. The Hawaiian archipelago was the last major land area on the planet to be settled, with Polynesians making the long voyage just under a millennium ago. Our understanding of the social, political, and economic changes that have unfolded since has been limited until recently by how little we knew about the first five centuries of settlement. Building on new archaeological and historical research, Sumner La Croix assembles here the economic history of Hawai'i from the first Polynesian settlements in 1200 through US colonization, the formation of statehood, and to the present day. He shows how the political and economic institutions that emerged and evolved in Hawai'i during its three centuries of global isolation allowed an economically and culturally rich society to emerge, flourish, and ultimately survive annexation and colonization by the United States. The story of a small, open economy struggling to adapt its institutions to changes in the global economy, Hawai'i offers broadly instructive conclusions about economic evolution and development, political institutions, and native Hawaiian rights.

International trade continues to expand robustly in East Asia and elsewhere, but global trade negotiations have collapsed and globalization is widely criticized.

In this book, the participants of the thirtieth Pacific Trade and Development Conference-including the then-Director General of the World Trade Organization, and leading government officials, academics and executives from a dozen major Pacific Rim economies-debate whether global negotiations have ended once and for all, or are suffering temporarily from 'globalization fatigue;' whether East Asia's new regional partnerships will advance or undermine the global trading system; and whether the region's trade tensions with the United States will intensify or subside. They provide new empirical evidence on how trade affects the distribution of income, the location of pollution-intensive industries, the causes of 'outsourcing, ' the structure of the intellectual property regime, and international security. And they probe the implications of adjustment to globalization: how can countries reap the benefits of trade while controlling the risks faced by the poor and, perhaps more importantly, the politically strong?

Challenges to the Global Trading System is an invaluable resource for students and scholars of Asia-Pacific studies, international relations and development studies, as well as those with a more general interest in Asian studies.

This volume fills an important gap in the existing economic literature. While much has been written about Japan's pre-1990s institutions and economic performance, this text is unique in its forward-looking orientation - trying to understand not only the institutional and structural changes that have already reshaped Japan in the 1990s, but to identify the critical trends and institutional changes that will mould Japan's new economy over the next decade.

This volume fills an important gap in the existing economic literature. While much has been written about Japan's pre-1990s institutions and economic performance, this text is unique in its forward-looking orientation - trying to understand not only the institutional and structural changes that have already reshaped Japan in the 1990s, but to identify the critical trends and institutional changes that will mould Japan's new economy over the next decade.