Investing Japan
Subtitle: foreign capital, monetary standards, and economic development, 1859-2011
By: Simon James Bytheway
Series: Harvard East Asian monographs -- 370; Harvard East Asian monographs -- 370.
Publisher: Harvard University Asia Center
Published: 2014
Language: eng
Number of pages: 286
ISBN-13: 9780674417137
Subjects: Monetary policy; Economic conditions; Economic policy; Economic development; Foreign Investments; History
Description: "Investing Japan demonstrates that foreign investment is a vital and misunderstood aspect of Japan's modern economic development. The drive to become a modern industrial power from the 1860s to the 1930s necessitated the adoption and internalization of foreign knowledge. This goal could only be achieved by working within the overarching financial and technological frameworks of Western capitalism. Foreign borrowing, supported by the gold standard, was the crux of Japan's prewar capital fomation. It simultaneously financed domestic industrial development, the conduct of war, and territorial expansion on the Asian continent. Foreign borrowing also financed the establishment of infrastructure in Japan's largest cities, the nationalization of railways, the interlinked capital-raising programs of "special banks" and parastatal companies, and the rapid electrification of the Japanese economy in the 1920s. Simon James Bytheway investigates the role played by foreign companies in the Japanese experience of modernization while highlighting their identity as key agents in the processes of industrialization and technology transfer"--Jacket.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (pages 245-267) and index.