{"product_id":"9780226532721","title":"The Fable of the Keiretsu: Urban Legends of the Japanese Economy","description":"For Western economists and journalists, the most distinctive facet of the post-war Japanese business world has been the \u003ci\u003ekeiretsu,\u003c\/i\u003e or the insular business alliances among powerful corporations. Within \u003ci\u003ekeiretsu\u003c\/i\u003e groups, argue these observers, firms preferentially trade, lend money, take and receive technical and financial assistance, and cement their ties through cross-shareholding agreements. In \u003ci\u003eThe Fable of the Keiretsu,\u003c\/i\u003e Yoshiro Miwa and J. Mark Ramseyer demonstrate that all this talk is really just urban legend.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e In their insightful analysis, the authors show that the very idea of the \u003ci\u003ekeiretsu\u003c\/i\u003e was created and propagated by Marxist scholars in post-war Japan. Western scholars merely repatriated the legend to show the culturally contingent nature of modern economic analysis. Laying waste to the notion of \u003ci\u003ekeiretsu\u003c\/i\u003e, the authors debunk several related “facts” as well: that Japanese firms maintain special arrangements with a “main bank,” that firms are systematically poorly managed, and that the Japanese government guided post-war growth. In demolishing these long-held assumptions, they offer one of the few reliable chronicles of the realities of Japanese business.","brand":"University of Chicago Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47120271048944,"sku":"9780226532721","price":46.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0737\/7593\/9824\/files\/9780226532721_p0.jpg?v=1763674823","url":"https:\/\/shop-qa.barnesandnoble.com\/products\/9780226532721","provider":"Barnes \u0026 Noble (DEV)","version":"1.0","type":"link"}