Competition for Plant and Equipment Investment as an Engine of the Economic Growth : Japanese Corporations during the High Growth Era

ケイザイ セイチョウ ノ エンジン トシテノ セツビ トウシ キョウソウ : コウド セイチョウキ ノ ニホン キギョウ

設備投資競争

「投資が投資を呼ぶ」

日本固有の設備投資促進要因

「投資抑制メカニズム」

This paper mainly discusses how plant and equipment investment actively expanded during the high economic growth era from the middle of the 1950s to the beginning of the 1970s in Japan. Based on case studies on competition for plant and equipment investment in the three major industries ; electric power, steel, and petrochemical, this paper makes clear factors peculiar to Japan in promoting the competition for investment, those are (1) labor-management relationships supporting capital investment, (2) complementary role of the government, (3) complementary functions of company groups, and (4) competition conducted to follow the crowd. The most important massage of the paper is that to revitalize plant and equipment investment warrants revival of the Japanese economy from the current dire situations.