This book investigates why the convergence of Japan’s bank-centered financial system to an American-style capital market-based model has lost steam since the mid-2000s, despite financial deregulation during the 1980s and 1990s.
"In the 1980s and 1990s financial deregulation was launched with great fanfare in Japan. In this book Gotoh tells an often overlooked story of how these ‘Big Bang’ reforms faltered and US-style capitalism was resisted. It is written with care and precision, highlighting the continuing challenges for Japan and the lessons for us all". – Professor Hugo Dobson, School of East Asian Studies, University of Sheffield, UK.
"The Japanese government enacted substantial financial and corporate governance reforms since the 1980s, yet Japan never converged on the US equity-based financial model. Fumihito Gotoh masterfully unravels this puzzle by demonstrating how the opponents of reform waged an ideological battle against the proponents of neoliberal reforms. They resisted American financial hegemony to preserve valued institutions, such as collaborative labor-management relations and long-term business partnerships." – Professor Steven K. Vogel, Charles and Louise Travers Department of Political Science, University of California, Berkeley, USA.
Fumihito Gotoh is a Teaching and Research Fellow in the Department of Politics and International Studies at the University of Warwick. His research interests include East Asian and Japanese politics and political economies, comparative capitalisms, and the politics and sociology of finance. Previously, he was a senior credit analyst in Tokyo for the Industrial Bank of Japan, Merrill Lynch, and UBS.