A full-set of "mono-culture processing-oriented" industrial structure was formed on the basis of the most advanced heavy and chemical industries, which was an inter-sector, where investment attracted the successive rounds of investment. This formation had taken place under the Cold-War regime during Japan's high economic growth since the second half of the 1950s and sustained by loans and indirect financing by the World Bank as well as by the state-of-the-art technologies and resources introduced from abroad. In the 1990s, however, this structure met with doomed resolution. What caused this resolution were five factors. First was the disappearance of the external basis for the existence of the Cold War regime triggered by its downfall, first economically at the second stage in the mid-1980s following the first stage of the early 1970s, and then politically and fatally with the collapse of the USSR and East European Socialist systems in 1989-91. Second was the formation of a wide-area cycle with East Asia through overseas expansion by Japan's manufacturing companies prompted by the yen's dual-stage appreciation which was brought about by the Plaza Accord in 1985, as well as by the shift to the post-Cold War policy in 1993. Third was the failure of indirect financing and forced accumulation (led by capital investment) in the wake of the bursting of Japan's bubble economy. Fourth was the shift of industrial priorities to R&D through information networking led by PCs and the Internet, and a change to a hardware subcontracting sector in the course of the "information investment cycle" under the lead of the U.S. Fifth was the collapse of the mass-consumption structure (or environment-load conversion type) with heavy reliance on external resources, energy and food in response to the deteriorating global environment as a negative by-product of Japan's high economic growth through forced accumulation under the currency control system with the dollar as its key currency. Manufacturing companies' shift of their production bases overseas caused by a higher yen shock and fatally disrupted the foundation of Japan's agriculture, a sector that had long served as the supply base of low-wage workers while seeking and engaging in side jobs. This shift also broke down the three-tier arrangement based on industrial discrepancy with the subsisting farming as its bottom tier. Japan's postwar economy represented an overall dependence structure, with the state depending on the U.S., companies on the state, small and medium companies on big companies and workers on employing firms. The collapse of the Cold War regime, industrial hollowing due to the yen's up trend and the dissemination of information in society in the 1990s have crushed the ground and foundation of the existence of this system. This development is urging the state, companies and individuals to stand on its, or their, own feet and forcing the industrial structure based on environment-load exports to change into a cyclical type of sustainable structure.

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The object of this article is to consider the historical character of the great depression in 1990s, through analyzing the structural change of regional economies in Japan. I begin by analyzing the factors, which have brought about this depression. I argue that a 'dual internationalization', the globalization of Japanese capitalism and the 'globalization of policies' associated with the adjustment of the economic structure since latter half of 1980s, has been a main cause of the 'bubble economy', and the depression after that. Based on the examination of a series of statistics about regional economies, I reach the following conclusions. 1. The 'dual internationalization' has been not only a main cause of this depression, but also a cause of the fact that this depression has taken a long time. 2. The contradiction between multinational capitals that could avoid a crisis spatially and regional industries fixed to the region, agriculture and local industries, has been expressed itself by a regional opposition. 3. The change of fundamental laws about labor, agriculture, and smaller enterprises in 1990s, means the intention to 'global state' in the interest of multinational capitals. 4. But it must bring about contradiction between multinational capitals and most of population, who live in the region in Japan. 5. For a solution of this problem, it is necessary that we face up to the 'dual internationalization' radically at the national level, and reconstruct the regional industry at the regional level.

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One may conclude Japanese inferiority only from the fact that information technologies (IT) have lead higher productivity of manufacturing industry in USA. However, such assertion is questionable because American economic growth in the 1990s has come mainly from the Bubble as did Japanese in the 1980s. USA has forced financial liberalization upon the world in order to take greatest advantage of Dollar as the key currency. In consequence international financial crisis has been a frequent occurence, meanwhile, USA as the World's financial centre stands economically unrivaled. And the international financial system, affected by globalization and IT, will fall into more precarious position in the future. The main cause of the long depression of Japanese economy during 1990s must be attributed to the stock deflation occasioned by the shriveled bubble. And besides, we can find many important causes. In the first place is an institutional friction occasioned by the Financial Big Bang and the International Accounting Standards (IAS) introduced under the pretext of "globalization". Especially the following points have a harmful influence upon the Japanese systems of finance, management, and social safety-net, viz. ; (1)reckless application of American rules of pay-off system into Japan which has been in an entirely different institutional context, (2)disclosure of pension debt, which becomes obligatory by the IAS, incompatible with Japanese employee's pension plan, (3)introduction of the consolidated accounts of cash-flow which is relevant to American, not Japanese, management technique. Second, the long depression was caused also by Japanese economic and social policies, viz. ; (1)the working-off policy failed to dispose banks' bad loan, and (2)market fundamentalist policy opens a way to over-mobility of employment and reductions in social security. If we want to get out of this depression, we should check an easy application of 'global standards', and we need to rebuild a social safety-net.

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In this paper, I will try to clarify why the U.S. enjoys the economic prosperity in the 90s, which marks a sharp contrast to the economic depression of Japan. First, I identify why the military expansion in the Cold War era had brought about the economic decline of the U.S. The Nuclear weapons system, as well as the accompanying offensive doctrine had created a deep military-commercial split or a "separation wall" within the US economy, thus transforming the military industrial base to a kind of isolated "Getto". Therefore it was natural that Japan could become a real victor in the 80s. As the Cold War terminated, the Clinton administration wanted to introduce a new agenda, proposing an integration of economic security with military security. Dual-Use technology policy, as well as a civil-military integration strategy became a key idea, on which the Clinton administration gave a top priority. Huge resources, which used to be dedicated to the "pure play" military use, have been converted to a dual-use arena, thus strengthening not only economic power, but also military might. In this process, the military technology revolution, especially the strategic shift from "Nuclear Umbrella" to "Information Umbrella" has played a pivotal role. However, it would inevitable to find some weak points in this strategic shift. Lastly this paper will try to identify what a limit of this dual-use strategy is about, assessing whether the 21st century will become another century of American dominance, or it will become a century of declining American Hegemony.

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The U.S. economy has continued to perform in an outstanding way since 1992. Economic growth still remained solid through 1999, and financial markets, after freezing up temporarily following the Russian default, were revitalized again. Labor markets have remained quite tight, but to date, this has failed to ignite the inflationary pressure that many feared. Some economists call this longest continued economic growth "New Economy". The theory of "New Economy" is not so detailed, but they adroitly point out some important changes of the U.S. economy in the 1990s. As a result, this theory consider the U.S. economy in the 1990s as fundamentally different from that in the 1980s. According to them, the most important structural change is technological, that is the rapid diffusion of information technology. The first section of this paper examines some structural changes, which they think essential to understand the U.S. recent economic growth. In the theory of "New Economy", from my viewpoint, a high performance of the U.S. stock market is considered as a symbol of good real economy. However, we think that there are more positive factors resulting in continued rise of stock prices. Therefore, the second section of this paper focuses on the domestic and international factors behind a high performance of the U.S. stock market in the 1990s. Based on our analysis, household's stock investment through pension fund, life insurance and trust investment is the most important fund flow into the stock market. An another source of fund into the U.S. stock market is foreign capital. But this doesn't necessarily mean that foreign investors buy a large amount of the U.S. stocks on the net base. In reality they prefer treasury securities and corporate bonds to corporate stocks. This results in lower interest of the long-term liabilities and in turn shifting the household investment into the stock markets from bank deposit and treasury securities. Thus foreign capital flow into the U.S. treasury securities and bonds stimulates indirectly the U.S. stock markets.

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"Swedish Model" as centralized bargaining by trade union and employer confederations had played an important role for the development of "Fordism" in 1950s' and 1960s' Sweden. The agreement between trade union and employers included spread of Tayloristic production management such as MTM-method. In 1980's "Swedish Model" broke up and the bargaining system has been decentralized. But the co-determination legalized by MBL remains and works in company. This is a successor of tradition of industrial democracy in Sweden and will be an essential factor for the development of "Post-Fordism (Volvoism)" in Sweden.

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