두 일본의 정치경제학

Japan, the System That Soured (Paperback)
Richard Katz / M E Sharpe Inc / 1998년 5월

세계의 병자로 불리던 헤이세이 불황 시절 일본에 대한 논의를 결산하는 책이라 할 수 있다. 왜 10년이 넘도록 문제를 해결하지 못하는가? 그 해답은 거의 대부분 정치경제에서 찾는다. 이에 관해선 Pempel의 Regime SHift에서 정치학적 접근을 하고 있다면 이 책에선 경제적면을 더 부각시키면서 효율적인 수출부문과 비효율적인 내수부문이란 두개의 일본을 조화시키던 정치경제 시스템이 불황의 원인이자 지속된 이유라고 설명한다. 더 자세한 것은 내가 영어로 쓴 아래 리뷰를 보라

다음은 내가 아마존에 썼던 리뷰이다 

Over more than a decade, Japan has baffled not only its citizens but also foreigners with its inability to sort the mess out. They call it the Heisei depression. What¡¯s the problem of Japan? It¡¯s been a daunting question. There have been numerous explanations. Those could be grouped into three camps in my view:
1. the problem is the financial macroeconomics not the fundamental disease of Japanese economy. Once the bad loans are cleared up, Japanese economy would be on the right track as before. (Posen at IIE: Cargill and his colleagues)
2. Japan is on the bad point at its long-term cycle. Each economy has its own long-term cycle of investment, determined by the level of sunk capital. In this view, ascendance of Japan and Germany over the States in ¡®70s and 80s could be attributed to this dynamic of cycle. In other words, the US was in a bad point at the time. Now Japan is on its own bad point. (Robert Brenner)
3. Depression or liquidity trap must be serious problems. But those are not the cause but the symptom of deep-seated malady. So-called Japanese miracle was propelled socioeconomic regime of ¡¯55 system, in Pempel¡¯s words. It was the key to Japan¡¯s epic story. But now it¡¯s the curse to Japanese economy. The vested interests of the regime¡¯s alliance, or iron triangle, has hamstrung the overall competitiveness of economy. (Pempel, Tilton, Porter, Bai Gao, Brookings Institute, OECD, and The Economist)
Richard Katz is on the side of the third camp. His argument is like this: Infamous industrial policy fostered various industries with policy pair of promotion/protection. But not all sectors succeeded in world market. Those sectors should be liquidated to free resources up to competitive sectors in the view of rational policy makers. But such massive exit or restructuring is not of political rationale. The first oil shock exacerbated things around exit options. Such an attempt would be political suicide. So Japanese government prop them up. But uncompetitive sectors have taxed out competitive sectors and consumers with artificially high prices far above international market prices. It has resulted in weakening competitiveness and aggregate demand in economy-wide. To make up for weak domestic demand, export-drive set in motion. Up to mid-1980s, competitive Japan like electronics, automobile industry could feed up uncompetitive Japan like petrochemicals, steel, service sector at the expense of overseas competitors¡¯ market share. But overdependence on overseas market invited super-strong yen in 1985. So export-drive hurts its very condition. There was 2 consequences: Competitive sectors responded with FDI, so-called the problem of ¡®hollowing out¡¯;s Now overseas market couldn¡¯t make up for the feeble domestic demand. So there should be alternative demand in domestic side. Government boosted the demand with pouring down money. Buddle swelled. At last bubble busted. The problem of Japan is not financial mess but the political economy of two Japans. It has weakened the competitiveness and aggregate domestic demand. Deregulation is the answer. But it¡¯s near impossible for political reasons. So the problem lies not in economic side but in political side.
Katz follows the mainstream line of Japanese studies. So His account of Japanese political economy is not that unheard-of. but he articulates the points with simple and clear economic modeling. The picture he draws up is amazingly lucid and plain. His work could be counted as the constellation of a decade¡¯s debates.