日本财阀系列企业体系Keiretsu历史背景和面临问题.doc

Question One: Compare the post-war Keiretsu inter-firm structure in Japan with the pre-war Zaibatsus. Explain the reasons why the Keiretsu were important to Japan’s economy in the 1950-1990 period, and why they are now considered to be a major cause of its current structural problems.
Introduction
This paper reviews major theoretical and empirical work paring the Keiretsu and Zaibatsus as well as the importance of Keiretsus in the process of Japan development during the 1950s to early 1990s. Firstly, pare the pre-war Zaibatsus with the post-war Keiretsu in concepts, history, structures and governance perspectives. This article will reviews major theoretical and empirical work on vertical and horizontal Japanese keiretsu. I then discuss changes in the Japanese economy during the post-war period from 1950s till 1992 Japanese economic decline and their implications for the persistence and continued benefits of each form of inter-corporate grouping followed by a discussion of facts regarding the role of keiretsu in the Japanese economy. Thirdly, this article will analyse the structural problems of Keiretsus on the globalisation context.
Backgrounds of Zaibatsus and Keiretsus in Japan
Japanese Zaibatsus developed mostly from the Meiji era (1868-1912). By the turn of the century, Japan had given birth to several groups of widely panies, each of them owned and operated by a single