The treatment of the wartime period in Japan's history textbooks has long been a subject of debate and controversy, even a source of international tension. Since their creation, history textbooks have been used to shape national identity and encourage patriotism. This article, drawing on the comparative study of high school history textbooks in Japan, China, South Korea, Taiwan and the United States by Stanford's "Divided Memories and Reconciliation" project, compares the treatment of the wartime period in the textbooks of China and Japan. The study found that Japanese textbooks are relatively devoid of overt attempts to promote patriotism and that they contain more information about controversial wartime issues such as the Nanjing Massacre than is widely believed. In contrast, Chinese textbooks, particularly after their revision a decade ago, are consciously aimed at promoting a nationalist view of the past as part of the country's “patriotic education” campaign. The article warns, however, against efforts in Japan to promote a Japanese-style version of patriotic education.

This paper discusses economic impacts and policy challenges related to implementing Basel III, the new international standard of banking regulation, in the United States, Japan, and the European Union. The G20 leaders endorsed Basel III in late 2010 and currently national regulators are translating it into their national laws and regulations. A key issue is whether regulators can persuade their national legislatures and industries of the merits of Basel III. This paper compares and analyzes the economic cost-benefits of Basel III under the different regulatory environments of these countries, including the size of the banking sector in financial intermediation, the size of bank assets relative to GDP, additional capital that banks need to raise, the methods banks use to raise capital ratio, and cross-border bank activities.

日本経済が現在直面する課題は、１９世紀半ばの開国、１９２０年代の混乱、第二次世界大戦による荒廃といった歴史的転換に匹敵する。

長期的視点から「日本の失敗」の原因を究明し、成長への総合的な政策を提示する。

Phillip Y. Lipscy and Lee Schipper examine energy efficiency in the Japanese transportation sector since the 1970s. Comparisons with the United States and other developed economies illustrate that Japan primarily stands out due to low activity levels and modal structure rather than modal energy intensity. On-road automobile energy intensity has shown little improvement, albeit from a low base, over the past four decades. They also consider policy measures undertaken by the Japanese government. Political arrangements in Japan after World War II made it attractive for politicians to pursue energy conservation by making transportation, particularly by automobile, expensive for the average Japanese citizen. The revenues raised from various fees and taxes on automobile transportation were redistributed to core supporters of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party. These political arrangements have come under fire in recent years, calling into question Japan's traditional approach towards transportation sector energy efficiency.

The digital information technology (IT) revolution currently underway is profoundly reshap- ing economic activity, influencing politics, and transforming societies around the world. It is also forcing a reconceptualization of the global and local: many of the technologies, platforms, and fundamental disruptions are global in nature, but national or local contexts critically influence the uses and effects of IT.

The Asia-Pacific region provides a fascinating array of countries for examination of the political, economic, and sociocultural effects of digital media on the modern world. Economies range from developing to advanced. Governments include varied democracies as well as one-party regimes. The press enjoys relative freedom in some countries, undergoes limited constraints in others, and is tightly controlled in a few. Populations range from dense to sparse, and from diverse to relatively homogenous.

Held September 12–13, 2013, in Kyoto, Japan, the fifth Stanford Kyoto Trans-Asian Dialogue focused on the catalyzing effects of digital media for change in the Asia-Pacific. Four major themes were addressed:

1. Digital Media versus Traditional Media
2. Digital Media and Political Change in Asia
3. Social Change and Economic Transformation
4. Digital Media and International Relations

SYNCRETISM front cover

Japan’s first decade of the twenty-first century was both disappointing and bewildering, producing wildly contrasting evaluations. Many have come to call this period the “second lost decade,” characterized by policy paralysis and overall lackluster economic growth.

For those studying Japan more closely, however, the same decades reveal nothing short of a broad transformation in numerous core tenets of Japan’s postwar political economy. How can we best capture this transformation?

Each chapter in this volume examines a different aspect of Japan’s political economy within a longer historical trajectory, from multiple angles, to depict a flexible but resilient system. We characterize Japan’s process of change as syncretism—practices foreign, domestic, old and new were selectively adopted, mixed and matched, along the way creating a new and unique hybrid system.

Examination copies: Desk, examination, or review copies can be requested through Stanford University Press. 

This paper presents a simulation model based on the growth rate, the inflation rate, and the consumption tax rate in the future. Future tax revenues and fiscal expenditures are projected using regression models estimated from past data. The fiscal situation is called unsustainable if the outstanding amount of Japanese government bonds (JGBs) becomes higher than the level of private sector financial assets. We focus on the general account of the central government, which is the source of JGB issues. We find that the higher the economic growth, the more likely it is that the fiscal situation is sustainable. When a larger portion of interest income is reinvested in JGBs, the chance is higher that the fiscal situation is sustainable. Most importantly, raising the consumption tax to 20% guarantees fiscal sustainability in most cases. Our analysis shows that without a consumption tax hike beyond the 10% rate, a fiscal crisis will be almost a certainty, even with a real economic growth rate of 2% despite a shrinking labor force. A reasonably quick hike of the consumption tax, namely a hike by 1% a year, up to 20%, combined with high or moderate economic growth rates, seems to keep the economy out of a fiscal crisis, where a moderate growth rate is defined to be generated by a productivity increase per working-age population of 1.9%, which was the average during the Koizumi years.