Abstract
This paper identifies the proximate causes of the Japanese PV industry's steady growth through the mid-1990s, rapid growth from the mid-1990s through the mid-2000s, and sudden loss of market share after 2005. The analysis shows that its rise resulted from the confluence of governmental industrial policy, firms' entrepreneurship, and university research and its decline occurred because of rapid market growth and global competition triggered by feed-in-tariff policies put in place by European countries. Now, the PV industry is entering a new stage of competition and Japanese companies have started to change their business models to compete more effectively with their Chinese and German competitors.
