Institutional Analysis of Japanese Economy II

We detail several factors that affected the fate of the Japanese economy from the eighteenth century to the twentieth century. Our first aim is to provide rich knowledge on the economic development of Japan. Japan’s historical experience has become more, not less, relevant to contemporary economists. For a long time, Japan had been the only non-Western industrialized economy. Now, led by China, the industrial power has dramatically shifted toward the non-Western world. Japan’s experience would give lessons to understand how a non-Western economy becomes industrialized and transforms own socio-economic system. Our second aim is to practice application of economics you have learned to a real case. The knowledge of economics enriches your intellectual and professional life only if you can adequately apply the theory you learned to the first-hand reality. We try it by taking examples from the Japanese experience.