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Examines economic development in Japan during the 19th century using the growth linkages/virtuous circle model. Identification of the interaction between agriculture and industry in Japan using the growth linkages model; Details on agricultural and nonagricultural growth in the 19th-century Japanese countryside; Discussion on rural growth linkages in Japan.

The literature on JIT production suggests a causal link between work-in-process inventory and manufacturing productivity. Such a connection has been described in numerous case studies but never tested statistically. This paper uses historical data for 52 Japanese automotive companies to evaluate the inventory-productivity relationship. We find that firms increased their productivity rank during periods of substantial inventory reduction. More detailed tests suggest that inventory reductions stimulated gains in productivity: On average, each 10% reduction in inventory led to about a 1% gain in labor productivity, with a lag of about one year. Such effects were more immediate for Toyota affiliates, but undetectable for close suppliers of Nissan. These findings imply that inventory reduction served as an important driver of process improvement for many Japanese automotive companies, although some firms emphasized other methods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

China has been considered a systemically important economy for at least a decade. As policymakers worldwide grapple with sluggish growth there is relatively little evidence about whether the G4, which consists of the US, the Eurozone, Japan, and includes China, as a block contributes to global economic performance in a manner that is not possible when China is left out or treated exogenously. We estimate a series of panel factor and standard VARs because these are well suited to exploit cross-country links. We estimate the relative impact of domestic and global factors on these four economies. First, it is essential to treat China in a model of the G4, on a level playing field with the US, the Eurozone, and Japan to better understand how shocks among these economies interact with each other. Second, we find that domestic and global shocks can reinforce each other. Indeed, global monetary shocks explain up to 60% of variation in commodity demand and real economic conditions. We also report that there is a trade-off between domestic monetary and financial conditions. We recommend that policymakers to reexamine the potential benefits from greater policy cooperation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigates how small corporations in rural areas of Japan obtained funding from the 1880 s through the 1910s and reassesses the role of market-based financing for Japanese small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). While most previous literature shows that Japan effectively used bank-based financing for SMEs, this study provides evidence that corporations of various sizes, including small ones in rural areas, arranged funding through the stock and bond markets during Japan's early industrialisation period. While this type of financing arrangement helped promote early industrialisation, it also strengthened the dual economy during full-fledged industrialisation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores whether the validity of infrastructure investment serves as a procyclical or anticyclical instrument to counter a recession in the case of the Japanese economy. Infrastructure consumption is usually financed by taxes. For that reason, this paper accounts for the presence of alternative tax regimes. Namely, we have chosen regimes under Total Taxation, Capital Taxation, Corporate (Income) Taxation, Household Income Taxation and Indirect Taxation (valued added tax) to identify different policy outcomes under different regimes. The results indicate that when infrastructure is financed by different taxation across all its variations there is a negative relationship with GDP which is robust when the same estimation procedure is explored for industrial production. The trade-offs of a negative relationship, however, come with a lesser duration of the industrial production recession. The empirical results indicate that trying to get out of recession with infrastructure investment is underutilization of resources and does not touch the real issues that caused the recession. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A once-dominant family of interpretations of the beginnings of Japanese and Russian development claimed that policies adopted by the two states were inadequate to modernize agrarian property relations, and so both states were required to mediate between premodern agriculture and “hot-house” modern industry. More recent accounts have insisted that despite the limited reforms to agrarian property relations, agriculture in both countries in fact dynamically participated in economic development. This paper contends that these revised accounts’ one-sided focus on market opportunities leaves unresolved key puzzles. Why did productivity growth jump higher after the Meiji reforms in Japan? Why did only some regions participate in agricultural development in Russia? To answer these questions, this paper argues it is necessary to return attention to the ways agrarian property relations did and did not change following reforms adopted by the two states in the 1860s and 1870s. The key theoretical upshot of this analysis is that the initiation of capitalist development required a political process in which institutions that had previously guaranteed non-market access of rural households to subsistence were dismantled in favor of the domination of market relations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The measurement of corporate performance is central to strategic management research. A common objective of this research is to identify top performers in an industry and their sources of competitive advantage. Despite this focus on best firms and practices, most researchers utilize statistical methods that identify average effects in a sample, and they assess a single performance dimension while ignoring other relevant dimensions. Emphasis on purely financial measures can overlook the fact that a firm's efficiency in transforming resources has been shown as a major source of competitive advantage. In this article we demonstrate how frontier methodologies, such as Data Envelopment Analysis and the Stochastic Frontier approach, can address these challenges. We provide an illustration based on longitudinal data from U.S. and Japanese automobile producers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper aimed to examine whether the Japanese automakers find India an 'Investment Friendly Nation' based upon their experience in India so far. It analyses the `Japanese Management Style' and observed the advantages and disadvantages it offers through a comparative analysis with the management style prevalent in the Indian auto companies especially in two major auto companies in India such as Maruti Suzuki and Honda. It sought to identify' the major challenges faced by the Japanese car makers while investing in India and the steps taken in form of policies and practices to tackle such challenges. The findings included that Japanese companies would emphasise on long term vision and planning. Quality and customer satisfaction are key to their growth and market penetration. Japanese auto majors values `trust' especially in joint ventures like Maruti Suzuki. Skilling workers especially at lower end is important for success in auto sectors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, we examine the utility of Antonio Gramsci's concept of passive revolution and its relation to Leon Trotsky's theory of uneven and combined development in analysing the transformational effects of world economy and international relations on 'late-developing' societies' transition to capitalism. Although Gramsci never explicitly linked passive revolution to uneven and combined development, we argue that Trotsky's theory helps make explicit assumptions present in the Prison Notebooks, but never fully thematised. In turn, we demonstrate that incorporating passive revolution into Trotsky's theory further illuminates the ontology of class agencies that is often lacking in structuralist approaches to bourgeois revolutions. In illustrating these arguments, we examine the case of Japan's modern state-formation process, demonstrating how the Meiji Restoration of 1868 can be conceptualised as a passive revolution emerging within the context of the uneven and combined process of social development activated and generalised through the rise of the capitalist world economy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The "resource-based view of the firm" has become an important conceptual framework in strategic management but has been widely criticized for lack of an empirical base. To address this deficit, we utilize a new method for identifying inter firm differences in efficiency within the context of stochastic frontier production functions. Using data on Japanese and U.S. automobile manufacturers, we develop measures of resources and capabilities and test for linkages with firm performance. The results show the influence of manufacturing proficiency and scale economies at the firm and plant level. We apply the parameter estimates to account for Toyota's superior efficiency relative to other producers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]