文部省科学研究費補助金「特定領域研究（Ｂ）」



経済変動班　1999年度活動概要・研究会議事録

◎1999 年5 月26 〜28 日にフランスのリヨン第2 大学で開催された国際ポランニ学会で、経済変動班は、2 つのJapan Session を担当して、「パクアメリカーナの日本経済社会へのインパクト」についてのこれまでの共同研究の成果を報告した。

それぞれの報告の概要は以下の通り。

1 .MARUYAMA, Makoto (University of Tokyo)
Solidarity as Prerequisite for the Welfare State System in the Broad Sense
This presentation is the introductory part of the Japanese panel "The Japanese Welfare State System in Transition:Under the Pressure of Americanization and Market‐Oriented Deregulation."The focus will be on the in efficiency of the deregulation and privatization of the Japanese welfare system.I will demonstrate that the social cost of the earlier Japanese welfare policy was cheaper than that of the privatized one, and make clear that the cheapness of the regulated welfare system depended on the kind of community relationship which has existed in traditional societies.Since the deregulation has destroyed the community relationship, the new Japanese welfare system must be supported by community-like structures in order to make itself sustainable. I will claim that such structures will reinforce the reciprocal relationships among local people, and their solidarity.

2 .SHIBUYA, Hiroshi (University of Tokyo)
PAX-AMERICANA SYSTEM and JAPANESE WELFARE STATE
Under the Pax-Americana system Japan could save on military expenditure and apply the savings to economic growth.But economic growth brought drastic change, and because of labor shifts among industries and labor migrations between different areas, some areas with distressed industries were left behind the "Affluent Society."Generally a mechanism is needed to equalize unbalanced growth.In the Japanese case, although tax revenue is mainly raised in the urban and industrialized areas, public works tend to be targeted at distressed rural areas.The government rice-purchasing price is set higher than the international market price, so it actually works as an agricultural subsidy.Recently the Japanese Welfare State reached a turning point. Workers employed in public works or those who received farm assistance, have been gradually entering the pension beneficiary rolls.Along with this social change, the share of Social Security in the Welfare State has been increasing and similar equalization mechanisms have been set up in Social Security.

3 .HANAZAKI, Masaharu (Japan Development Bank)
A Vacuum of Governance in the Japanese Bank Management
This paper provides an overview of the bank crisis Japan has faced since the early 1990 s.Undeniably, the current bank crisis is the aftermath of the financial over-expansion that occurred in the late 1980 s. However, this paper focuses on the issues related to managerial governance in the banking sector.We propose a hypothesis that there has existed a vacuum of governance in the Japanese bank management in the sense that bank managers have enjoyed wide latitude.Some international comparisons as well as the comparison between the financial sector and the manufacturing sectors in Japan would support the hypothesis. This hypothesis of the governance vacuum will explain why the bank crisis has been so serious and so protracted.

4 .IMURA, Shinya (Chuo University)
Changing Roles of the Public Sectors in the Housing Finance Markets: Myth and Reality of "Small Government "and their Results in Japan and the U.S.
Affordable housing finance is an essential factor of the welfare state system in advanced countries, and governments have been intervening in this field with various routes and tools.But in the past few decades these interventions have begun to shift to indirect and marketized forms such as credit guarantee and refinancing, as well as the privatization of public corporations, confronting the enlarged fiscal deficit and changing policies in order to avoid "pressures on the private financial institutions." Nevertheless, such indirect and marketized interventions of the public sector have not reduced their presence in the markets, nor the costs of the taxpayers. This paper examines such paradoxes, through the consideration of the process and backgrounds of changing public sectors' roles in Japan and the U.S.housing finance in the development of financial liberalization and securitization since 1970 s.

5 .TATEIWA, Toshikazu (Tokyo University of Agriculture)
U.S.Agricultural Policy and World Market
The agriculture and agricultural policy of the U.S. have a great influence on world agricultural markets and agricultural trade.And through the Agricultural Act of 1996, the U.S.agricultural policy changed greatly from the former policy system.The fundamental directions of the change are liberalization, strengthening of agricultural exports, environmental and natural conservation.The change of U.S.agricultural policy corresponds to the WTO system, and corresponds to the multilateral character of agriculture and agricultural policy.On the other side,the change of U.S.agricultural policy, however, has some significance for world food conditions and agricultural trade.In the recent condition of the world economy, the new direction means an increase in the instability of the world food supply and consumption, and in the economic conditions of U.S. farms.The U.S.agriculture, recently, suffered from a decline in prices and exports.We find some evidence of instability in the recent condition of U.S. agriculture.

6. YASAKA, Masamitsu (University of Tokyo)
Change of Japanese Agriculture Related to U.S.
Economic growth and improvement in food consumption brought about a dynamic change in agricultural production and farming.With the reduction in international competitiveness of Japanese agricultural products, in other words, under the increase in grain imports from the U.S.to Japan, rice and fresh agricultural products, including some regional products, were safeguarded as staple products for Japanese farmers.However, it appears that the U.S. agriculture industry is built into the Japanese food system. Faced with this situation, the Japanese agriculture industry concentrates on products using very little land.Many agricultural products are going to be cultivated in factory-like facilities.The impact on Japanese agriculure by the U.S. can be seen in people's eating habits as well as agricultural production.Especially the meals eaten in restaurants and take-out meals, which rely on imported manufactured food, have been adapted with more diversified menus and trained services in Japan.We can say the American fast-food system has changed its style and developed as one which could become equivalent to home-cooked meals.Two of the most important issues that the Japanese agriculture industry will have to deal with are the reassessment of land-use agriculture and people ﾕs eating habits.

7. ARAMAKI, Kenji (Nagasaki University)
The Asian Crisis and the Prescriptions by the International Monetary Fund
Asian economies are yet to recover from the Asian crisis ignited by the sharp depreciation of the Thai baht in July 1997 .Most of the affected economies either have bottomed out or are bottoming out this year but we need to wait for the next year or even later for those economies to come back to a high growth path.In response to the dramatic collapse of the currency and the stock markets in the region due to the abrupt withdrawal of an enormous amount of private capital, the international community swiftly extended a large amount of financial assistance.However, despite such international support, the crisis engulfed many neighboring economies and evolved into a full-fledged regional economic crisis that is by far deeper and by far longer than initially anticipated.This crisis is said to have originated not from the traditional type of currency crisis arising from the deterioration in the current account but from a new type of currency crisis, which some people call "a currency crisis of the 21 st century, "arising from a sudden reversal of international capital flows. Against this background, it now needs to be answered whether the counter measures adopted under the leadership of the IMF correctly responded to such characteristics of the crisis. The prescription by the IMF, centering on structural reform measures, may not have sufficiently addressed the true nature of the crisis, that is, the volatility of international capital flows, which may characterize the globalized financial markets. In the face of the incessant globalization of the world financial markets, the international community has to concentrate their efforts to reform the international financial system so as to bring about more stability in the world financial markets, in general, and to incorporate both preventive measures against the re-emergence of crisis and effective counter measures when a crisis re-emerges, in particular.Meantime, the developing economies have to press forward with the strengthening of their domestic financial systems and in the cases where the maturity of the system is not sufficient they might well be better off to take a cautious approach to the full integration with international financial markets via liberalization of their capital account.