Organization, Performance and Equity: Perspectives on the Japanese Economy provides an analysis of key components of the Japanese economy and business structures, edited by two leading American-based Japan scholars. The contributions to this book are grouped into four major categories: organizations; income distributions; technological progress; and macro performance.The first section examines the retail sector, the role of information in evaluating distribution systems, and ownership structures and their effect on welfare, all in the context of the Japanese economy. The second section concerns issues of Japanese tax structures, growth, and income transfers, while the third section focuses on technology and productivity. The concluding section addresses major macro issues like trade and the value of the yen.

I: Organizations.- 1 Entry Regulations, Tax Distortions and the Bipolarized Market: The Japanese Retail Sector.- 2 Demand Uncertainty and Distribution Systems: Information Acquisition and Transmission.- 3 Oligopolistic Competition and Economic Welfare: The Effects of Ownership Structures.- 4 Stackelberg Equilibrium with Private Information.- II. Income Distribution.- 5 Intergenerational Altruism and Income Transfers: Indeterminacy of Equilibria and its Resolution.- 6 Optimal Intergenerational Transfers in an Endogenous Growth Model with Bequests.- 7 Equity in the Income Tax Rate Structure: Measurement on the Income Elasticity of Marginal Utility and its Application.- III. Technological Progress.- 8 Externalities and Productivity Growth: Evidence From Japanese Manufacturing.- 9 Technological Spillovers and Capital Mobility in a Two-Country Model of Economic Growth.- 10 Three Applications of Lie Groups.- IV. Macro Performances.- 11 The Japanese Yen as an International Currency: Performance and Prospects.- 12 Consumption Function in the Short, Medium, and Long Runs: The Japanese and U.S. Cases.- 13 Monetary Shock does not Matter in Japan: A Kalman Filter Approach to Real Business Cycle Theory.- 14 International Welfare Effects of Saving Controls and Trade Restrictions.