In the half-century since the end of World War II, Japan has grown spectacularly out of the war's ruins. The country now faces a new economic era with harsh reality. It is an opportune time to take stock of Japan's economic performance. With this in mind, this issue presents a survey of the...

The Japan Communist Party (JCP) published its position paper on the Japanese economy in June 1977. Its general summary is translated and presented in this issue of uJapanese Economic Studies/u in the hope that it will give the reader a clearer idea of how the JCP looks at the Japanese economy...

The ever more conspicuous success of Japanese business has put Japanese-style management into the limelight. Outside observers searching for the secret of Japan's high productivity growth and product quality have quite naturally turned their attention to the country's distinctive management...

It is true that individuals formulate and implement their consumption-saving plans based on the expected economic environment. As the economic environment is always in a state of flux, individuals must keep on revising their plans as they go along. The question is: How do they revise their plans...

It goes without saying that the dual structure is a hallmark of Japan's production economy. It has attracted a great deal of attention in Japanese economic studies, especially in the historical context.sup1/sup Its theoretical underpinnings, however, do not seem to have been fully explored. In...

In the 1970s, the Japanese economy began facing serious employment problems. On the side of labor demand, the deceleration of economic growth considerably weakened the strengths of employment demand. This was particularly marked in manufacturing industries, which actually reduced employment in...

The Japanese economy experienced extreme vicissitudes in a short span of four decades, from the nineteen thirties to the sixties. More than half a century of steady economic growth was terminated by Japan's entry into a full-scale war with China in 1937, which escalated into World War II four...

Since the 1950s, Japan's stock market has gone into bubbles every ten years or so (early 1950s, early 1960s, and early 1970s). Then the 1980s saw a strong bubble that continued for several years (late 1982 to the end of 1989). What caused this bubble to be so strong? Our analysis of the...

The past two years have witnessed serious disruptions in the international monetary and trade systems, and Japan has played a central role in these events. Japan's trade surplus has continued to expand over the past few years; in 1971 it became so large that Japan's foreign exchange reserves...

This issue marks the twentieth year of >i>Japanese Economic Studies>/i>. Twenty years represents a long period of time, and it would be useful to take stock of what has ensued.>sup>1>/sup>