Abstract

A review article on two books, each of which proposes to apply standard economic anlaysis to an aspect of economic life (labor markets) and a society (Japan) where years of conventional wisdom has suggested that such analysis may be out of place. Robert Evans, Jr.'s Labor Economies of Japan and the United States compares numerous aspects of the allegedly impersonal labor market of the United States; he finds the differences surprisingly small and the parallels surprisingly large. Koji Taira's Economic Development and the Labor Market in Japan is primarily a series of studies in the quantitative economic history of Japan, concentrating upon the labor market. The two books overlap to a great extent, and combine to question if not overthrow the anti-economic notion that standard analysis is out of place in dealing with labor problems even in a country with the anti-economic traditions of pre-Meiji Japan.

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