The history and future of the Japanese financial system.

Debates regarding corporate governance have become increasingly important in Japan as the post-war model of bank-based, stakeholder-oriented corporate governance faces the new pressures associated with globalization and growing investor demands for shareholder value. Bringing together a group of leading scholars from economics, law, sociology and management studies, this book looks at how the Japanese approach to corporate governance and the firm have changed in the post-bubble era. The contributions offer a unique empirical exploration of why and how Japanese firms are reshaping their corporate governance arrangements, leading to greater diversity among firms and new 'hybrid' forms of corporate governance. The book concludes by looking at what effect these incremental but transformative changes may have on Japan's distinctive variety of capitalism.

In this book, Takeo Hoshi and Anil Kashyap examine the history of the Japanese financial system, from its nineteenth-century beginnings through the collapse of the 1990s that concluded with sweeping reforms. Combining financial theory with new data and original case studies, they show why the Japanese financial system developed as it did and how its history affects its ongoing evolution. The authors describe four major periods within Japan's financial history and speculate on the fifth, into which Japan is now moving. Throughout, they focus on four questions: How do households hold their savings? How is business financing provided? What range of services do banks provide? And what is the nature and extent of bank involvement in the management of firms? The answers provide a framework for analyzing the history of the past 150 years, as well as implications of the just-completed reforms known as the "Japanese Big Bang." Hoshi and Kashyap show that the largely successful era of bank dominance in postwar Japan is over, largely because deregulation has exposed the banks to competition from capital markets and foreign competitors. The banks are destined to shrink as households change their savings patterns and their customers continue to migrate to new funding sources. Securities markets are set to re-emerge as central to corporate finance and governance.

In this book, Takeo Hoshi and Anil Kashyap examine the history of the Japanese financial system, from its nineteenth-century beginnings through the collapse of the 1990s that concluded with sweeping reforms. Combining financial theory with new data and original case studies, they show why the Japanese financial system developed as it did and how its history affects its ongoing evolution. The authors describe four major periods within Japan's financial history and speculate on the fifth, into which Japan is now moving. Throughout, they focus on four questions: How do households hold their savings? How is business financing provided? What range of services do banks provide? And what is the nature and extent of bank involvement in the management of firms? The answers provide a framework for analyzing the history of the past 150 years, as well as implications of the just-completed reforms known as the "Japanese Big Bang." Hoshi and Kashyap show that the largely successful era of bank dominance in postwar Japan is over, largely because deregulation has exposed the banks to competition from capital markets and foreign competitors. The banks are destined to shrink as households change their savings patterns and their customers continue to migrate to new funding sources. Securities markets are set to re-emerge as central to corporate finance and governance.

This book explores the linkages between the evolution of corporate social responsibility (CSR) and corporate financing and governance in Japan since the late 2000s. Since the 1990s, increasing economic and financial globalization has steadily eroded the Japanese style of business based on relationships and influenced the awareness and practices of CSR that are unique to Japanese companies. In Japan’s two “lost decades” after the bubble economy, the business model and corporate financing seem to have continued a gradual financial reform toward a more market-oriented system. CSR awareness and practices of Japanese companies have been influenced by social and environmental issues that global society and communities face. Furthermore, the Fukushima nuclear accident in 2011 triggered increasing attention paid to the responsibility of business toward society. In this process, major players in corporate governance and components of governance structure have continued to change. The conventional view of Japanese corporate governance and corporate finance is too narrow to understand this field in Japan. This book is based on empirical research to investigate how multifaceted CSR has aligned with business and finance and has influenced the corporate governance structure of Japanese companies. The findings and discussions in this book act are stepping stones in further research on the linkages between business and society, and provide empirical evidence on changes in Japanese corporate finance and governance.

While Japan's export-oriented economy has been advancing with astounding speed, significant differences remain between the management philosophy and techniques used within Japanese companies and those used in the West. These include the significant differences in the use of capital budgeting techniques, economic and political assessment of projects, decision-making styles, and techniques of corporate governance.

Emerging from ten years of post-bubble recession, the Japanese business and economic system will need to enter a period of radical restructuring in order to return to the growth of former years and maintain its influential position in the development of new technologies. Japan's choices for the future will have a major impact on its global trading partners. In this edited collection of papers, an international range of contributors discuss the fundamental issues faced by the Japanese business and economic system from historical, analytical and empirical perspectives. Their conclusions combine to present a view of the path Japan should take to restore its economy to optimal growth in the 21st century, and show how this path will affect global markets.