Abstract

This article, drawn from the recently published book Japanese Takeovers: The Global Contest for Corporate Control, examines the future development of a market for corporate control in Japan. The challenge for the Japanese system of corporate governance is to find a substitute for the lessening of capital market discipline caused by the decline in the dependence of firms on bank lending. A market for corporate control will emerge in Japan: managers will be replaced and capital will be reallocated. But this market will assume a distinctively Japanese character, one that reenforces rather than undermines the firm's long-term trading relationships.