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Japanese Economic Development: Theory and Practice. By Penelope Francks * New York: Routledge, Chapman and Hall, 1992. x + 288 pp. Tables, notes, bibliography, and index. $62.50. ISBN 0-415-04100-7.
Reviewed by Mansel G. Blackford
This valuable synthesizing study, a part of the Nissan Institute/Routledge Japanese Study Series, attempts "to apply to the historical case of Japan some of the ideas and theories produced in recent years in the field of development economics" (p. 1). Penelope Francks explores Japan's economic history to "draw out the 'family resemblances' between the experience of Japan and that of other developing countries" (p. 6). She does so by investigating selected aspects of Japan's past that have been carefully chosen to illustrate intersections in the work of economic historians and developmental economists.
Francks first looks at the role of the state in Japan's modernization before the Second World War. She provides both a balanced, sophisticated overview of Japan's economic development and solid case studies on cotton textiles, shipping, steel, and automobiles. Francks shows that the government helped through various forms of aid but possessed noneconomic as well as economic goals in doing so. She correctly points out that many types of government assistance, such as pilot factories, proved ineffective and that the efforts of private entrepreneurs were often more significant than those of government...