The development of technology and international economic cometition causes drastic changes in the industrial structure as well as the decline of old or comparatively disadvantaged industries in a national economy.
The national government usually adopts industrial adjustment policies, or so-called soft landing policies in order to minimize such social problems as unemployment, bankruptcy and depressed regional economies.
In Japanese postwar history the most representative industry to decline due to such a comparative disadvantage is the coal industry, which had played a central role in Japan's energy supply since the Industrial Revolution. In this paper we describe the Japanese Government's soft landing policies for the coal mining industry and focus on the coal mining area development policy.
The coal mining area development policy has been based on the plan provided by Coal Mining Area Development Act of 1961. The budget for developing coal mining areas has totaled 208 billion yen from 1967 to 1994, or an average of 7.4 billion yen per year. This policy has adopted three main measures.
The first measure was the establishment of the Japan Regional Development Corporation, a government corporation which has since developed industrial parks in coal mining areas. By the end of fiscal 1992, 136 industrial parks covering 4, 114ha had been constructed.
Secondly, the central and local governments have endeavored to induce factories to coal mining areas by financing or providing subsidies to newly located factories in these areas. By the end of fiscal 1992, 5, 406 factories had been built in coal mining areas, of which 3, 618 factories had been located in industrial parks constructed by the Japan Regional Development Corporation. It is clear that the government corporation has played an important role in inducing many factories to these areas.
The number of workers employed by newly located factories in industrial parks has now reached 140, 000. Considering that the number of persons who lost their jobs because of the coal mine closures has been calculated to be 226, 000, without a doubt these newly located factories in industrial parks have also played an important role in employing for unemployed persons as well as their family members.
The shipment of finished goods from manufacturing industries in coal mining areas increased by about 28 fold from 1960 to 1990, while, overall, the Japanese manufacturing industry increased by about 21 fold in the same period.
Thirdly, the Government has given Coal Mining Area Development Grants to local governments in order to solve many of the resultant social problems. Regarding this policy, it remains difficult to conclude whether or not such a policy has succeeded in improving the financial condition of the local governments.
Though the Government has endeavoured to develop coal mining areas, the population of these areas has substantialy decreased. The population of the coal mining areas decreased from 3.0 millon to 2.1 millon, or by 30%, from 1960 to 1975 and has since remained at 2.1 millon from 1975 to 1992.
However, it is noticeable that there are clear differences between coal mining areas in regard to the changes in population.
The first group consists of the Rumoi, Tenhoku and Amakusa coal mining areas, where the population has continued to decrease drastically because of the depressed coal mining, agriculture and forestry industries.
The second group comprises the Ishikari and Takashima coal mining areas where the population has also continued to decrease drastically because of the closure of major coal mines.
The third group includes the Chikuho, Karatsu and Sasebo coal mining areas where the population decreased drastically from 1960 to 1975 because of the collapse of the coal mining industry but thereafter slightly increased from 1975 to 1993 as a result of the coal mining area development policy.

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The retailing industry has gone through a tremendous transformation since World War II. During this period it has become an increasingly important part of the total national economy, as the economy shifted from secondary to tertiary industry. However, as the general prosperity and growth of the postwar period gave way to the increasingly competitive and uncertain economy of the 1970s and 1980s in the United States (and the early 1990s in Japan), the organization of giant retailing began to become more competitive and unstable as well. Throughout the 1980s and the early 1990s, there was a general decline in profitability in the industry, due to increasing costs and development of various discounting formats in the U. S. In Japan, a slowdown in income growth under Heisei Depression has increased competitive pressure on retail firms. Some of them, especially small or midium-sized firms have responded to this change by developing various discounting formats. But future structure of giant retailing in Japan is not yet certain.
In this article we compared the basic structural and behavioral characteristics of giant retailing in Japan and the United States. We set points of our comparative study on,
a) the historical emergence of giant retailing, (In Japan, a few large department stores were the only modern and well-organized retail firms until the mid-1960s. Most of giant retail firms except department stores were established in the late 1960s.)
b) historical changes of giant retail firms which are considered as being composed of a retail portfolio of various retail formats, (In sharp contrast to Japan, discount store is a growing subset of the retail trade sector in the U. S.)
c) pattern of firm growth.
d) diffusion process of point-of-sales systems as a technological innovation, (Customers [for price removal from individual items] and the labor union [for resulting in enormous labor savings] both resisted the introduction of scanners in the U. S.)
e) the development of diversification innovations, (During the last 30 years, giant retail firms have followed a diversification strategy of expanding into new geographic and product markets. However, their conglomeration strategy was unsuccessful in both countries.) and
f) changes of labor conditions since 1980s.

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Since the end of World War Two, the Japanese electrical/electronics industry has continuously taken the lead in the development of the Japanese industries. While changing its leading sector at each developmental stage, the electrical/electronics industry has taken the lead in terms of GDP, exports, and technological development.
As to the globalization of the Japanese industries, the electrical/electronics industry was one of the first industries to start overseas production and international division of labor, and the development of the semiconductor industry encouraged the advancement of the Japanese industries and the innovation of companies. Although the Japanese industries are now faced with a sharp appreciation of Japanese yen and, as a result of that, a big wave of structural change, there is no doubt that the electrical/electronics industry will continue to take the lead in globalization and technological innovation, which are more needed than before in order to maintain continuous growth of the Japanese industries.

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Community Businesses are trading organizations, which seek to generate an income and support jobs by selling goods or services. The most important difference between Community Business and conventional business is that the profits and assets of Community Businesses are vested in the community-there are not the property of the board of directors of the individual businesses.
Community Business started in Scotland to deal with the depressed economy and the unemployment problem which are far more serious than those of Japan. Still we can learn from the experience of the Community Business in Scotland several points to regenerate the local economy and to give the people the pride of place in Japan.
First, Community Business can respond to a perceived need for a commercial service which conventional enterprises are not providing.
The second point is that most of Community Businesses have the legal structure which involves the holding company and the trading subsidiary companies. The holding company is incorporated as a company limited by guarantee with charitable status. The company has a strategic function, providing guidance, and co-ordinating support to the subsidiary which is trading on commercial base. The profit from the trading activities are being used to support a charity in turn.
The third point is that the local governments have given special financial and technical supports to the Community Business which faces difficulties in generating the business.
The forth point is the network between the community enterprises. They are involved in the organizations to do the adovocacy, to give the technical assistance about the management and to raise funds by themselves.

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This Paper considers the politics that steelmakers took with regard to sogo shosha (large general trading companies) and specialist trading companies during the period of Japan's rapid economic growth, when the amount of imported iron ore was expanding rapidly.
The steel companies typically maintained exclusive relations with a specific trader vis a vis each of a large number of small mines, mainly in Southeast Asia, during the 1950s. In the 1960s, however, newly developed large-scale ore mining projects became the primary source of supply. In order to develop such huge projects, the steelmakers needed the information, financing, transport, and the organizer-role of the sogo shosha. Many specialist steel traders attempted to develop capabilities comparable to the sogo shosha in order to maintain their leading roles. However, while a number of the former textile traders were successful in becoming sogo shosha, most of the specialist steel traders generally failed, despite assistance from the steelmakers, and were instead absorbed by their larger sogo shosha competitors. The steelmakers switched increasingly to the sogo shosha as their main traders, resulting in the top 6 such organizations handling 58.5% of the business in 1965, rising to 71.8% by 1971.
Those specialist steel traders that did not attempt to become sogo shosha became affiliated agents for their large steelmaker customer/patrons. Through the 1960s, the steelmakers recognized and strengthend them into virtual in-house traders. These in-house traders operated essentially as if they were parts of the respective steelmakers. In the late 1960s, steelmakers were able to avoid a complete sogo shosha oligopoly grip on ore by increasing their own imports through the in-house traders. Thus, the competition in ore-importing between the sogo shosha and the in-house traders can be seen primary as a struggle between the sogo shosha and the steelmakers themselves.

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Some transaction cost economists expect that the recurrent transactions with transaction-specific assets by independent parties will be integrated into one party to avoid the transaction costs in consequence of parties' post-contractual opportunistic behavior. But in fact, we can see such transactions by independent firms in some markets, such as subcontracting in the Japanese automobile industry. The purpose of this paper is to consider what factors prevent transactions, especially in the markets for intermediate manufacturing goods, from integration (vertical integration). Observing organizing costs or reputation, etc., this paper stresses the possibility that the difference of bargaining power between firms restrains the transaction costs in order to sustain the recurrent transaction by independent firms. The hierarchy outside firms, based on the difference of bargaining power, prevents the transactions from integration that will make the hierarchy inside one firm. We also make brief comments upon recent arguments about network organizations.

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