Suchergebnisse

Fifteen or so years ago and for many decades before that, popularly speaking, it was not uncommon to think of the Japanese as slavish imitators of foreign technology. As research workers in economic history, we recognize that slavish imitation of foreign technology is no easy matter. Foreign technical practice is hardly uniform. Choice among a number of competing technologies is hardly child's play. Young Japanese students of a century ago were enjoined to go overseas, discover what was best and make it Japanese. Such injunctions by a semi-feudal oligarchy and its intellectual supporters while progressive in spirit were naive. One process rarely dominates international industry. What was useful for the world's leader might not be appropriate for the human and nonhuman resource endowment of late nineteenth-century Japan. Initially, Japan's worldwide search led it to adopt a French-style army, an American-style banking system, and a British-style cotton textile industry. In time each of these models were either discarded in favor of other national models or otherwise modified to meet the imperatives of assimilation.

Over the past century and a quarter, there has been a dramatic decline in the equitable distribution of real income around the world. Associated with this rising inequality has been a dramatic acceleration in the pace of the real economic growth. The association of a decline in the equitable distribution of global income by country with a rapid acceleration in the pace of economic growth, can only mean that a relatively small number of countries have achieved extremely rapid rates of economic growth. The author discusses Japan's experience in this regard. (DÜI-Sen)

Instances of failure since 1980; some focus on reluctance of firms to join government-sponsored research and development projects, including the Fifth Generation Computer project. Includes comparison of spending on R&D and domestic and global market shares of hi-tech industries in France, Germany, Japan, and the US, modesty of tax incentives, phasing-out of tariffs, and possible role of keiretsu (groups of firms) in restricting imports.