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.

Papers originally prepared for the symposium Tax law in East and Southeast Asia towards the 21st century, held at Leyden University on 4 and 5 July, 1996.

This book is the second volume of a planned trilogy on legal protection of citizens' rights against the state in East and Southeast Asia. The first volume was published in 1997, under the title of "Comparative Studies on the Judicial Review System in East and" "Southeast Asia." The third book will deal with the subject of due process of law with respect to administrative decision-making in these areas. This second volume examines the historical development and present function of governmental liability in Japan, China, Korea, Taiwan, Malaysia and Indonesia. Both theoretical and practical problems of governmental liability are analyzed through comparative perspectives. As German and Dutch law have a strong influence in East and Southeast Asian countries, the governmental liability system in these two countries is also discussed. During the process of modernizing the economy and legal systems, especially with the globalization of the economy and the internationalization of Western law, it is inevitable for countries in East and Southeast Asia to introduce a governmental compensation system. However, because of a lack of experience of civil society and the tradition of the rule of law, of shortage of finance, and of different viewpoints on human rights, the introduced and planned governmental compensation systems in East and Southeast Asia could not be expected to function in the same way as those in Western countries. This book is based on the assumption that it is better to prevent damage from happening than compensating for it with money.

This is the third volume in the series Yearbook Law & Legal Practice in East Asia, which addresses the legal systems of this important region and provides an insight into some of the most topical issues in East Asian law and practice. The overall focus of the series is on the legal aspects of doing business in East Asia, although legal issues of a more general nature may also be included where these are relevant for a better understanding of the particular legal culture concerned. The majority of the contributions to this major work comes from legal practitioners and scholars specialising in East Asian business law.

Patrick Llerena and Mireille Matt BETA, Strasbourg, E-mail: pllerena@coumot. u-strasbg. fr BETA, Strasbourg, E-mail: matt@coumot. u-strasbg. fr 0. 1 Why Analyze Innovation Policies From a Knowledge- Based Perspective? It is broadly accepted that we have moved (or are moving) to a knowled- based economy, characterized at least by two main features: that knowl edge is a major factor in economic growth, and innovation processes are systemic by nature. It is not surprising that this change in the economic paradigm requires new analytical foundations for innovation policies. One of the purposes of this book is to make suggestions as to what they should include. Underpinning all the chapters in this book is a conviction of the impor tance of dynamic and systemic approaches to innovation policy. Nelson (1959)^ and Arrow (1962)^ saw innovation and the creation of new knowl edge as the emergence and the diffusion of new information, characterized essentially as a public good. The more recent theoretical literature regarded the rationale for innovation policies as being to provide solutions to "mar ket failures". Today, however, knowledge is seen as multidimensional (tacit vs. codified) and open to interpretation. Acknowledging that the creation, coordination and diffusion of knowledge are dynamic and cumu lative processes, and that innovation processes result from the coordination of distributed knowledge, renders the "market failure" view of innovation policies obsolete. Innovation policies must be systemic and dynamic.