Apipan's ways

Introduction              To understand Japanese economy in various details, many disciplines should be explored. One intriguing aspect here is a historical approach in the study of a businessman in Japan. Shibusawa Eiichi had been carefully selected for many reasons. First, it is commonly said that the present is conceived in the past and is conceiving the future. Shibusawa lived through the transition period from Togugawa to Meiji. He experienced the feudal system and its collapse to the beginning of the era of Japan’s successful transformation into a modern state, the opening period of Japan modernization. Second, it is interesting to study how a man of peasant origin developed himself to be a preeminent businessman. Third is to understand why the new regime of Meiji government which opposed to the old regime of Edo persuaded him, the man who had worked for the old regime, to join the Meiji government. Fourth, the simila...

The Effectiveness of APEC in Promoting Regional Economic Cooperation and Supporting the World Multilateral Trading Order Introduction               The objective of this paper is to evaluate the likely effectiveness of APEC (Asian-Pacific Economic Cooperation) as a means for promoting regional economic cooperation and supporting the world multilateral trading order. This paper is pursued to answer these following questions: Is APEC really a means for promoting regional economic cooperation and supporting the world multilateral trading order? If the answer is yes, then as a means for promoting regional economic cooperation and supporting the world multilateral trading order, what are the factors that probably make APEC effective? If the answer is no then what are the factors that probably prevent APEC from being effective? The examining of APEC’ s structure and initiatives with reference to the current political–econo...

Note: This article was written in January 1999. I              Personal savings in Japan is a very broad topic. Many studies examine the Japanese saving from generality (such as   Blumenthal(1970), Komiya(1966), Mizoguchi, T.(1970), Shinohara(1959) ) to specifics (such as Boskin and Horioka(1989), Dekle(1988), Hayashi(1986), Horioka(1985,1988), Maki(1989), Shinohara(1982,1983), Shibuya(1987)). None of these specifically touched upon the comparison between postal deposits and commercial bank deposits.              The hypotheses of this paper are as follows: 1.        The moving trend between the postal savings deposits rate and the commercial bank deposits rate reflects the real economic situation perceived by the people more than changes in the financial regulatory reform caused by financial liberalization and internati...