Japanese foreign direct investment (FDI) has increased rapidly since 1972 when the outward investment was liberalized.
In the beginning, Japan's overseas manufacturing investment was mainly placed on labor-intensive, traditional light manufacturing industries such as textiles and home electric products in South East Asia.
After that, technology-intensive industries (such as automobiles and electronics) have entered into US and other developed countries for their overseas production. While these attempts have been made mostly in response to protectionism overseas, more recently manufacturer's intention for international production is accelerated by high appreiciation of yen Thus more and more Japanese manufacturers seem to be multinatinalized.
At present there are many arguments on the nature, prospects or appraisal of Japanese FDI. Among them I like to pick up three major points
1) Are there good reasons to believe that the manufacturing investment in the developed countries like US. is promising and/or favorable to international trade?
2) Does the FDI contribute to the reduction of trade surplus of Japan?
3) Is the Japanese style management applicable to foreign countries?
On these points I am not so optimistic as opinions often found in the papers and magazines Also we have to pay more attention to the investment frictions in the host countries

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According to a survey by Japan Auto Parts Industries Association (JAPIA), Japanese auto parts manufacturers had, as overseas local companies, 152 manufacturing firms and 60 sales firms, and some instances of transfer of technology to local companies abroad, as of May, 1985.
In comparison to the previous survey in 1983, the number of companies operating abroad has increased by 23 manufacturing companies, 5 sales companies and 89 instances of technology grant, and in particular the progress in Taiwan, South Korea and the US has been marked This rapid progress of parts manufacturers' overseas expansion during these one or two years can be said to have resulted from a conception prevailing among many parts manufacturers that they could survive only by actively implementing their overseas strategy
International advancement of parts manufacturers can be classified by types as follows: companies which mainly pursue technology transfer to locally established companies, namely Akebono Brake Industry, Ltd, Ikeda & Co, Ltd, Tachikawa Spring Co, Ltd, etc, companies which primarily establish local companies abroad, namely Nippon Oil Seal, Mitsuboshi Belt Co, Ltd, Yazaki Corporation, Yuasa Battery Co, Ltd, etc, companies which actively pursue both technology transfer and establishment of local subsidiaries, namely Nippondenso Co., Ltd, NHK Spring Co, Ltd, Kayaba Industry Co, Ltd, etc.
The internationalization of these companies are based on the following.
1) Technical assistance, supply of knockdown parts, capital participation in local assembly companies, and other industrial cooperation intended to contribute to developing countries' fostering their domestic auto industry
2) Endeavour to create a new supply system for automobiles and/or auto parts by linking-up of auto industries in developed and developing countries, such as Japan-US-Korea or Europe-US-Korea, by making the most of their respective strengths and advantages A good example is the system of division of labor between Japan, the U.S and Korea built up by Nippon Sheet Glass Co, Ltd, Libby-Owens-Ford Co. and Hankuk Glass Co, Ltd have built up a plant for car glass in South Korea. In addition to the Korean market, supply to the Japanese market is contemplated
3) Attempt to respond to the aforementioned request by auto makers in the U. S market for competitive Japanese parts manufacturers setting up local plants in the US
4) Attention is paid to the activity of parts manufacturers which are implementing their own international strategy particularly in the North American market They are trying to expand their business with the Big Three, unfettered by their domestic trade relations in Japan, and regard the U. S. market as the pivot for their world strategy For example, Nippon Cable System supplies the Big Three with cable systems Nippon Oil Seal supplies them with oil seals, Izumi Motor Co. supplies Ford, Chrysler and Nissan with steering gears; Yazaki Corporation supplies Chrysler and Nissan with wire harness, Akebono Brake Industry has begun jointly producing brakes with G. M.
Thus a wide variety of international development can be perceived in the activities of Japanese auto parts makers. This indicates that parts makers have begun to get out of the umbrella of auto makers which had guided them in product development, marketing, control techniques and various other aspects, and that they have begun to cut their own path in the course of internationalization of their operation, taking full advantage of the outside pressure for internationalization.

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I. Steel industry and change of its environment at home and abroad
Being a matured industrialized country, Japan's steel consumption per unit of GNP is on the decline Besides, because both “Direct steel products” and “Indirect steel products” depend considerably on external demand, recent revaluation of yen had an adverse effect on the steel industry. Moreover, steel consumption diversified and varied due to reasons of steel demand sectors, and the industry was compelled to satisfy such changing need of users by producing steel products of higher grades and sophistication.
On the other hand, there is steel production capacity in excess of steel demand, and structural adjustment is an urgent matter. In addition, some developing countries have succeeded in development or expansion of their steel industry and increased their steel exports to Japan, and increase of international competitiveness poses an urgent subject for the Japanese steel industry.
II. Increase of competitiveness and change of business management with technological innovation
…Divergence of behavior of (macro-) steel industry as a whole and (micro-) steel enterprises…
Under the change of environment at home and abroad, each steel enterprise is making efforts to regain growth potential through business diversification by development and innovation of technology centered on introduction of various high technologies and drastic, organic improvement of efficiency of management to make the industry competitive
The efforts may be divided to four main categories
a) Increase and confirmation of competitiveness of basic steelmaking activity, and Perfection of high technology and throughgoing rationalization
b) Development of new steel products and production of products with sophisticated quality, and Satisfaction of users' requirement and characterization of products
c) Extensive utilization of technologies accumulated in relation to steelmaking and establishment of new and different businesses, and Diversification of business with built-in factors for company growth
d) Expansion of business by utilization and application of technologies peripheral to steelmaking
III. Three aspects of internationalization of steel industry
a) Development of business overseas... Characterized by business activity in US in recent years
b) Internationalization of domestic market... Increase of steel import
c) An adverse effect of yen revaluation by reason of high dependence of steel production on external demand
IV. Change in business condition and problems related to management organization and labour
As a result of technical innovation, perfection of high technology and diversification of business, a big change occurred in management organization and employment adjustment of steel enterprises, and organic and efficient restructuring of the industry is now a big problem
V. Analysis of specific industries requiring study from new viewpoint
…Inter-industry problems and complex industry…
The change of steel industry as a particular industry resulting from multiple management and business diversification is considered to give various suggestions as a subject of industrial analysis.
When an industry or an enterprise diversified, the resultant subjects to be studied from the angle of industrial analysis would include, among others,
a) Problems brought about by business expansion exceeding the business proper to the industry and complex business tie-up,
b) Viewpoint from international industrial organization, more strongly required by reason of internationalization of relevant market, and
c) Necessity of formation of new industrial organization due to divergence in behavior of conventional macroindustrial organization and of micro-industrial enterprises as a result of their business diversification and multiple management.

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Faced with the need to cope with growing unemployment in the past decade, a renewed interest has been aroused among economists in the influence of market concentration on employment fluctuations. Previous studies in the U. S. have produced mixed results: Some suggest that higher concentration leads to stability, while others suggest otherwise Further, there are some others who suggest that there is no relation at all between the two.
This paper purports to examine the relationship in the Japanese context. The relationship is particularly interesting in Japan, because employment practices in major Japanese firms, which emphasize lifelong employment, can be taken to mean that major firms in concentrated industries in particular can and do provide secure employment to their employees.
Based on a sample of 181 4-digit manufacturing industries in Japan, the pattern of employment fluctuations in the 1961-70 period was analysed with the multiple regression technique After allowing for such factors as demand fluctuations, market size, worker characteristics, etc, the influence of market concentration and firm size on employment fluctuations was shown to have been positive, a finding which is contrary to the implication of “Japanese management” hypothesis Also of interest is the magnitude of the regression coefficient on demand fluctuations, which is much smaller than one The result indicates that much of the impact of demand fluctuations was absorbed before it influenced employment Although there are no comparable studies in other countries, we may probably say that regardless of the level of concentration and size of firms, Japanese industries in general promise securer employment than in other economies
Anti-monopoly policy has been based predominantly on the efficiency of resource use Our findings in this paper, however, give support to it from another ground, stability of the economy, which has been relatively ignored

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One of main difficulties to analyze a service economy is that we still have not a clear concept of services In the orthodox economics, services have been treated in the same way as goods, because they just creat only utilities. This tradition has led to superficial researches in the service economy
The term of goods in this paper is used to signify tangible or intangible objects owned by human beings The term of services is defined as useful functioning or events caused by the goods Both of the definitions are basically in line with the I Fisher's definitions The service contains time and space as essential elements And also, there does not exist any significant service unless the subject (=goods) emanating services has the object (=goods) receiving them Such attributes of service as (1) specificity of time and space, and (2) non-existency in itself, bring about various unique characteristics in transaction of service ex impossibility of service transactions in the case of non-durables, non-storability, non-transportability, irreversibility, externality, uncertainty, variability, and credibility etc. Then, the term of service industries can be defined as the set of establishments which mainly trade or supply services Statistically, we may include all of tertiary industries in the service industry Also, we can broadly define servicialization of economy as raising the weights of service transactions and public services in the total economic activities. (Section I & II).
The influential hypotheses of servicialization have been presented by C Clark, D. Bell, and J Jershuny But, in my opinion, these theories are inadequate because they failed to explain the essential facts of the phenomenon. So, 1 propose the first and second hypotheses in the closed economy and the third in the open economy
The first, human beings gradually become sensitive to opportunity costs of services created by goods which they own or want to own, as the economy develops
The second. various resources (=goods) that are difficult to trade in the form other than services (ex. marketing channel, knowledge, know-how etc.) are accumulated as the economy develops
The third: restraints of Nature revealed on the way of economic development raise transaction costs and/or costs of enlarging production within the economic area, then promote to transfer the accumulated managerial resources out of it, and that accelerates the servicialization within the area.
The first is related with behavior of human beings, the second with attributes of the resources, and the third with the space of economic area. Here, I stress the point that servicialization in itself is the inevitable process in the economic development and is contributable to improving the use of resources If it undermines the economic progress, the main reasons must have stemmed from structural changes caused by the successful development and the restraints of Nature. (Section III)
In place of my conclusions, I propose three basic problems in the analysis of service industries. This first is the problem related with the controversy of unproductive services. This dispute has been caused by not fully understanding the relation between goods (=stock) and services (=flow). So, there never exists, if not disservice, any unproductive service.
The second is that we have to devise an appropriate statistical method to transform the current value of service product into the real one The present method totally neglect quality changes of services, the aspect of which is the most important in service transactions
The third is that any equilibrium theory is incompetent, irrelevant and harmful in the case of analyzing the kaleidic world of services They ignore essential elements such as irreversible time, space, and cognitive function of human beings In my opinion, neo-Austrarian theories of market process based on human action are very useful to the analysis of service industries. (Section IV)

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