Japan’s High Technology Industries: Lessons and Limitations of Industrial Policy

This excellent book throws a good deal of light on what the Japanese do about biotechnology, communications and other high-tech industries, and how they do it. The authors are not fully in agreement about which measures are most responsible for which results, but their broad and subtle analyses help readers to understand important differences between the United States and Japan. Industrial policy, antitrust law, protectionism and the differing mixes of competition, cartelism and "organization" all receive attention, but the focus that recurs most often concerns the differences in the way research and development are regarded and carried out in the two countries.