Customer Reviews

Japan's Big Bang: The Deregulation and Revitalization of the Japanese Economy

5 star:		(29)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

This is a very good book. Prof. Hayes explains everything about Japan's business very well. Sometimes his English is hard to follow for me (I am Japanese) but his argument is not. It starts at the beginning about the marriages and mergers between Japanese and non Japanese companies. It tells that there are too many Japanese working in stupid jobs - like construction (10% of all Japanese workers, shops sales (another 10%)) and so on. It explains why this is silly, what Japan is doing to change it and the other problems. Prof Hayes is a gaijin but he understands Japan very well. I like this book very much.

This is a book that will be read for many many years to come. Prof. Hayes has summed up the whole economic experience of Japan in this great book. He shows the llogic of the Japanese position from the Japanese side and why Americans fail to understand Japan. Nor does he fall into the trap of the professional Japanologists - creating mysteries where none exists. Prof. Hayes cuts through the mists and gives us a clear explanation of what is going on in Japan and as to why Japan will continue to be America;s major competitor. If you want a book explaining Japan like no other has done, this is the book for you.

This is a good book, written in simple English by someone who knows his area well. He has a good piece on the Osaka Mafia and other blots on the Japanese corporate landscape. This is a book that tells it as it is. Informative, amusing, a book worth reading and buying.

This is a good book about an interesting topic. I bought it here in London for my Japanese Studies Course and got my first Distinction ever. Thank you Mr Hayes. He really knows his stuff and how to put it across. Would that the SOASS had more lecturers like him. He explains the different logic Japan has moved to and how it is now slowly accepting our own. A good and worthwhile book.

This is a well crafted book going through, in turn, the major parts of the modern Japanese economy: Japan Inc, a genral overview of the Japanese economy and why it is reforming with the Big Bang; 2. The Tokyo land and Share Price Bubble - why this mess led to the changes; 3 Japan's sullied mandarins: how and why Japan's former mandarin rules in the MOF etc have lost their power; 4 Japanese Financial Institutions - an excellent review of how all of Japan's DIs (banks etc)and NDIs (insurance companies etc) have lost their muscles - and tens of billions of dollars too; 5 Land of the Rising Liabilities: how Japan's famous savings pot is in trouble and how Japan's aged are putting a big strain on her resources; 6 The Japanese bond market: how it doesn't share up to intenraitonal standards, even thoguh it is now the world's biggest; 7. The Asian Contagion, self explanatory + two smaller chapters to round it off. The end result is Prof Hayes eases you in to Japan's problems and Japan's logic and shows how it is at oods with the Big Bang reforms. All and all, you will earn a lot from this cleverly crafted book. Buy it.

This is the best book by a gaijin on Japan. Most of them only write rubbish or what they think the Japanese want to hear. Prof Declan does not do that. He explain what Japan's problems are and what we must do to solve them. I got this book as a present but now i went out and bought another copy. You should do the same if you want to know about Japan.

Japan's Big Bang explains the reasons Japan is changing so fast and why it must change as well. Prof Hayes has a good sense of humor. This helps us to read this book on this important area and to learn much as well. This book should be read by every person who wants to understand modern Japan.

This book is an easy read -especially for such a potentially dry subject. The book had me laughing aloud at times. Prof Hayes does not worship the tin gods and tired cliches of others working in this field. He calls the Japanese mistakes for what they are - massive screw ups. The Japanese mandarins could learn a lot from this. So oculd you - and get a few laughs along the way.

This is the best available book there is to bring you up to date on Japan's current reforms. I had the author for Money nad Banking last year as an exchange student in Sophia and he helped to show me how Western logic does not apply to the Japanese system. It has its own logic which he explains. He shows how the Bubble occurred, how it wrecked Japan's financial houses and ordinary investors as well. He brings the tale right up to date by showing the costs and benefits of the mergers and acquisitions sweeping the market and the chances the foreign concerns operating in Tokyo have for ultimate success.He cuts through the hot air and mists of the Japanologists and shows you the real economy and the real people beneath it. If you are interested in learning about the real, modern Japan, read this book.

At last, there emerges a guy who is not afraid to cy=ut down the tall poppies of corporate Japan. Prof Hayes does us a good service in tracing the evolution of the Japanese economy and in showing how it contained the seeds of its own destruction. Japan has always changed at the last minute and the Big Bang is no exception. It was only under the last Cold Pizza PM - Obuchi - that the process of reform really began. This book is a part of that process. Prof Hayes does us all a service by calling the cards properly. A very good book in my opinion.