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- Toward a Comparative Institutional Analysis
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Information, Incentives and Bargaining in the Japanese Economy Information, Incentives and Bargaining in the Japanese Economy


Masahiko Aoki
by Cambridge, UK and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1988

Table of Contents
1. Introduction
 
2. The information structure of the J-firm
1. Stylized comparison: United States versus Japan
A. Job control unionism versus integrative learning
B. Centralized coordination versus the kanban system
2. The traditional paradigm of the hierarchy
3. Horizontal information structure
4. Concluding remarks
 
3. The ranking hierarchy of the J-firm as incentive scheme
1. Stylized facts
A. The pay structure and promotion scheme
B. The extent of lifetime employment
2. The ranking hierarchy and reputation
3. Contractual incompleteness and enterprise unionism
Appendix. An illustration of the ranking hierarchy
 
4. Corporate finance, stockholding returns, and corporate governance structure
1. Stylized facts
A. Corporate finance
B. Returns to stockholding
C. Stockholding structure
D. A historical note on stockholding structure
2. Debt versus equity financing
3. The bank as a monitoring agent
 
5. Bargaining game at the J-firm
1. The structure of the bargaining game
2. Some behavioral implications of bargain outcome in the J-firm
A. Growth-seeking behavior
B. Dilemma of industrial democracy
C. Gift exchange of higher effort and job security
D. Flexibility of earnings and work sharing
3. Historical formation of Japanese management
Appendix 1. Growth-seeking behavior: an illustration of the weighting rule
Appendix 2. Gift exchange of effort and job security
 
6. The changing nature of industrial organization
  1. The subcontracting group
A. Efficient contract design: incentive versus risk sharing
B. The relational quasi rent and its stratified division
2. The insurance function of corporate grouping and its waning
3. The direction and organization of R&D
A. Stylized characteristics of R&D: isomorphic structure of manufacturing and R&D
B. The chain-link model
C. Emerging intercorporate R&D linkage
4. Business organizations and social ranking of top management
 
7. Bureaupluralism
1. Two faces of the bureaucracy
A. Stylized facts
B. Why two faces?
2. The bureaucratic process
A. Stylized facts
B. Quasi-pluralistic bargaining nested within the bureaucracy
C. Semi-isomorphism: the J-firm and the bureaucracy
3. Bureaupluralism
A. The evolution of bureaupluralism
B. Bureaupluralism at bay and its dilemma
 
8. Culture and economic rationality
1. Culturalists versus rationalists
2. Is group orientation sufficient and necessary?

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