Japan's Big Bang: The Deregulation and Revitalizatiion of the Japanese Economy
Author: Declan Hayes
List Price: $19.95
Our Price: Click to see the latest and low price
ISBN: 0804832277
Publisher: Charles E Tuttle Co (March, 2000)
Sales Rank: 215,021
Average Customer Rating: 4.8 out of 5
Customer Reviews
Rating: 5 out of 5
Great, Simple Guide
This is the best available book there is to bring you up to date on Japan's current reforms. I had the author for Money nad Banking last year as an exchange student in Sophia and he helped to show me how Western logic does not apply to the Japanese system. It has its own logic which he explains. He shows how the Bubble occurred, how it wrecked Japan's financial houses and ordinary investors as well. He brings the tale right up to date by showing the costs and benefits of the mergers and acquisitions sweeping the market and the chances the foreign concerns operating in Tokyo have for ultimate success.He cuts through the hot air and mists of the Japanologists and shows you the real economy and the real people beneath it. If you are interested in learning about the real, modern Japan, read this book.
Rating: 5 out of 5
Great book
This is a very good book. Prof. Hayes explains everything about Japan's business very well. Sometimes his English is hard to follow for me (I am Japanese) but his argument is not. It starts at the beginning about the marriages and mergers between Japanese and non Japanese companies. It tells that there are too many Japanese working in stupid jobs - like construction (10% of all Japanese workers, shops sales (another 10%)) and so on. It explains why this is silly, what Japan is doing to change it and the other problems. Prof Hayes is a gaijin but he understands Japan very well. I like this book very much.
Rating: 4 out of 5
An important but difficult read
This is a detailed book. Almost too detailed. As a Professor of International Business in Tokyo's Sophia University the author is in a prime position to detail the woes of the Japanese financial system. And maybe that's where the problem with this book lies. He is a professor and not a writer. His insistence on using the expression "Big Bang" started to become a little annoying.His main emphasis is to point the finger at the Ministry of Finance, the government department which is supposed monitor the economy, regulate the banks and other duties as well. But the Bank of Japan, Tokyo University, private banks, gangsters, construction companies and everyone else are included where necessary.
But the main problem with the book is that it is fairly technical and dry. As I am not an economics student, I had trouble understanding a lot of the financial terms and expressions used through out the book. There is little in the way of explanations or a glossary or index for the average reader to use.
For the parts that I could follow, it paints a dire picture of the continuing Japanese economic malaise. Even though the book is a few years old now, the indications presented in the book and the remedies are still valid today because reform in Japan is a slow moving beast.
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