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Twentieth-century enterprise forms: Japan in comparative perspective

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  • Hannah, Leslie
  • Kasuya, Makoto

Abstract

La Porta et al. see common law as most favorable to corporate development and economic growth, but Japanese legislators explicitly based their system on German civil law. However, Japan’s commercial code of 1899 omitted the GmbH (private company) form, which Guinnane et al. see as the jewel in the crown of Germany’s organizational menu. Neither apparent “mistake” retarded Japan’s adoption of the corporate form, because its commercial code offered flexible governance and liability options, implemented liberally. It was this liberal flexibility, not choice of legal family or hybrid corporate forms emphasized by previous writers, that drove corporatization forward in Japan and more widely. Surprisingly (given that Germany’s superficially fuller organizational menu predated Japan’s by many decades and the country was wealthier), by the 1930s Japan already had not only more corporations than Germany, but also more commandite partnerships (with some corporate characteristics). After the introduction of the yugen kaisha (private company) in 1940, corporate forms became nearly as widely used in Japan as in the United States, United Kingdom, or Switzerland.

Suggested Citation

  • Hannah, Leslie & Kasuya, Makoto, 2016. "Twentieth-century enterprise forms: Japan in comparative perspective," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 65579, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
  • Handle: RePEc:ehl:lserod:65579
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    File URL: http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/65579/
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Julian Franks & Colin Mayer & Hideaki Miyajima, 2014. "The Ownership of Japanese Corporations in the 20th Century," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 27(9), pages 2580-2625.
    2. Omer Brav, 2009. "Access to Capital, Capital Structure, and the Funding of the Firm," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 64(1), pages 263-308, February.
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    Cited by:

    1. HANNAH, Leslie, 2018. "Corporate Governance, Accounting Transparency and Stock Exchange Sizes in Germany, Japan and “Anglo-Saxon” Economies, 1870-1950," Discussion paper series HIAS-E-77, Hitotsubashi Institute for Advanced Study, Hitotsubashi University.

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    • N0 - Economic History - - General

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