What is the corporation? How is it changing? A German and Japanese Comparison

 This talk will discuss how apparent differences in the institutional structure of the German and Japanese corporations can be understood in the light of recent developments of comparative institutional analysis.  It will then discuss how these structures are being adapted in response to market globalization and IT revolution and speculate on whether these two types of corporate structures will eventually converge to a similar type.

Masahiko Aoki is the Henri and Tomoye Takahashi Professor Emeritus and Senior Fellow of Stanford Institute of Economic Policy Research (SIEPR) at Stanford University. He is a theoretical and applied economist with a strong interest in institutional and comparative issues. Aoki is a former President of the Japanese Economic Association and a Fellow of the Econometric Society. He is also the founding editor of the Journal of Japanese and International Economies. Aoki’s most recent book, Towards a Comparative Institutional Analysis, was published in 2001 by MIT Press. His book in 1988, Information, Incentives and Bargaining in the Japanese Economy was published by Cambridge University Press and translated into six languages. His research has been also published in the leading journals in economics, including the American Economic Review, Econometrica, the Quarterly Journal of Economics, Review of Economic Studies and The Journal of Economic Literature.