Cutting across doctrines: positive adjustment in Japan

Abstract

Japan's economy keeps changing too fast, its economic policies are too active and independent, and its domestic structures seemingly deviate too much from Western patterns to conform to theories that rely on general equilibrium in mature economies. Static economics, including recent monetarist, supply-side, and rational expectations models, some aspects of dynamic and development economics, and most of the neoliberal current in international relations theory are seriously challenged. On the other hand, the mercantilist paradigm, theories focusing on the role of the state, and analyses exclusively adopting the subsystemic level of international relations theory have substantial problems with the ample evidence of adaptation to external factors, the dynamism and Schumpeterian qualities of Japanese private enterprises and the far-reaching liberalization of Japan's foreign-exchange and foreign-trade control regime. As the only OECD member to have pursued “anticipatory adjustment” on the macrolevel and as the obvious model for the OECD category of “positive adjustment,” Japan presents a case of universal relevance. It suggests propositions linking targets and instruments of quantitative and qualitative policies, as well as processes of internalization of global factors and externalization of domestic factors. It provides material for revising, extending, and integrating international relations theory and the theory of economic policy.