It’s long been known that Japanese file fewer lawsuits per capita than Americans do. Yet explanations for the difference have tended to be partial and unconvincing, ranging from circular arguments about Japanese culture to suggestions that the slow-moving Japanese court system acts as a deterrent. With Second-Best Justice, J. Mark Ramseyer offers a more compelling, better-grounded explanation: the low rate of lawsuits in Japan results not from distrust of a dysfunctional system but from trust in a system that works—that sorts and resolves disputes in such an overwhelmingly predictable pattern that opposing parties rarely find it worthwhile to push their dispute to trial. Using evidence from tort claims across many domains, Ramseyer reveals a court system designed not to find perfect justice, but to “make do”—to adopt strategies that are mostly right and that thereby resolve disputes quickly and economically. An eye-opening study of comparative law, Second-Best Justice will force a wholesale rethinking of the differences among alternative legal systems and their broader consequences for social welfare.

Second-Best Justice: The Virtues of Japanese Private Law

Engineering & Transportation

RAMSEYER, J. MARK

Automotive

University of Chicago Press

For Western economists and journalists, the most distinctive facet of the post-war Japanese business world has been the keiretsu, or the insular business alliances among powerful corporations. Within keiretsu groups, argue these observers, firms preferentially trade, lend money, take and receive technical and financial assistance, and cement their ties through cross-shareholding agreements. In The Fable of the Keiretsu, Yoshiro Miwa and J. Mark Ramseyer demonstrate that all this talk is really just urban legend. In their insightful analysis, the authors show that the very idea of the keiretsu was created and propagated by Marxist scholars in post-war Japan. Western scholars merely repatriated the legend to show the culturally contingent nature of modern economic analysis. Laying waste to the notion of keiretsu, the authors debunk several related “facts” as well: that Japanese firms maintain special arrangements with a “main bank,” that firms are systematically poorly managed, and that the Japanese government guided post-war growth. In demolishing these long-held assumptions, they offer one of the few reliable chronicles of the realities of Japanese business.

The Fable of the Keiretsu: Urban Legends of the Japanese Economy

Business & Money

Miwa, Yoshiro

Economics

In this introduction to Japanese law, J. Mark Ramseyer and Minoru Nakazato combine an economic approach with a clear and often amusing account of the law itself to challenge commonly held ideas about the law. Arguing against such things as the assumption that Japanese law differs from law in the United States and the idea that law plays only a trivial role in Japan or is culturally determined, this book will be recognized as a major contribution to the understanding of Japanese law. "A compelling economic analysis. . . . This book remains one of the few concerning Japanese law that successfully brings to life the legal culture of Japan." —Bonnie L. Dixon, New York Law Journal

Japanese Law: An Economic Approach (Studies in Law and Economics)

Nakazato, Minoru

Foreign & International Law

In this introduction to Japanese law, J. Mark Ramseyer and Minoru Nakazato combine an economic approach with a clear and often amusing account of the law itself to challenge commonly held ideas about the law. Arguing against such things as the assumption that Japanese law differs from law in the United States and the idea that law plays only a trivial role in Japan or is culturally determined, this book will be recognized as a major contribution to the understanding of Japanese law.

The role of the U.S. Supreme Court in the aftermath of the 2000 presidential election raised questions in the minds of many Americans about the relationships between judges and political influence; the following years saw equally heated debates over the appropriate role of political ideology in selecting federal judges. Legal scholars have always debated these questions—asking, in effect, how much judicial systems operate on merit and principle and how much they are shaped by politics. The Japanese Constitution, like many others, requires that all judges be "independent in the exercise of their conscience and bound only by this Constitution and its laws." Consistent with this requirement, Japanese courts have long enjoyed a reputation for vigilant independence—an idea challenged only occasionally, and most often anecdotally. But in this book, J. Mark Ramseyer and Eric B. Rasmusen use the latest statistical techniques to examine whether that reputation always holds up to scrutiny—whether, and to what extent, the careers of lower court judges can be manipulated to political advantage. On the basis of careful econometric analysis of career data for hundreds of judges, Ramseyer and Rasmusen find that Japanese politics do influence judicial careers, discreetly and indirectly: judges who decide politically charged cases in ways favored by the ruling party enjoy better careers after their decisions than might otherwise be expected, while dissenting judges are more likely to find their careers hampered by assignments to less desirable positions. Ramseyer and Rasmusen's sophisticated yet accessible analysis has much to offer anyone interested in either judicial independence or the application of econometric techniques in the social sciences.

Measuring Judicial Independence: The Political Economy of Judging in Japan (Studies in Law and Economics)

History

Rasmusen, Eric B.

Asia

An informative rethinking of how Japanese society discriminates against its Korean, Okinawan, and Burakumin populations.\nIn this book, J. Mark Ramseyer, a noted authority on Japan looks at discrimination against groups in Japanese society, focusing on the Korean, Okinawan, and Burakumin groups. Ramseyer asks why they experience discrimination in Japan, an unusually homogeneous society. Is it because of some prejudice on the part of the majority that prevents their integration into mainstream Japanese society? Or is it because some of the dynamics within the group create incentives for the group to stay together and to be on the fringes of society?\nRamseyer argues that the real explanation is the latter, and each of these three groups has been victimized by its own leadership. Precisely because the groups are dysfunctional, members of the group cannot control members who would appoint themselves group leaders. The result has been the capture of leadership positions by people who manipulate the group to their own private advantage and to the detriment of the group as a whole.

Discrimination in Modern Japan: Case Studies in Identity Politics

Politics & Social Sciences

Sociology

Employing a rational-choice approach, Professor Ramseyer studies the impact of Japanese law on economic growth in Japan. Toward that end, the author investigates the way law governed various markets, and the way that people negotiated contracts within those markets. Findings reveal that the legal system generally promoted mutually advantageous deals, and that people generally negotiated in ways that shrewdly promoted their private best interests. Whether in the markets for indentured servants, prostitutes, or marriage partners, this study reports little evidence of either age- or gender-related exploitation.

Odd Markets in Japanese History: Law and Economic Growth (Political Economy of Institutions and Decisions)

Cambridge University Press

The Politics of Oligarchy: Institutional Choice in Imperial Japan (Political Economy of Institutions and Decisions)

This book examines a key question of modern Japanese politics: why the Meiji oligarchs were unable to design institutions capable of protecting their power. The authors question why the oligarchs chose the political institutions they did, and what the consequences of those choices were for Japan's political competition, economic development, and diplomatic relations. Indeed, they argue, it was the oligarchs' very inability to agree among themselves on how to rule that prompted them to cut the military loose from civilian control--a decision that was to have disastrous consequences not only for Japan but for the rest of the world.

Rosenbluth, Frances McCall

Employing a rational-choice approach, Professor Ramseyer studies the impact of Japanese law on economic growth in Japan. Toward that end, the author investigates the way law governed various markets, and the way that people negotiated contracts within those markets. Findings reveal that the legal system generally promoted mutually advantageous deals, and that people generally negotiated in ways that shrewdly promoted their private best interests. Whether in the markets for indentured servants, prostitutes, or marriage partners, this study reports little evidence of either age- or gender-related exploitation.

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by RAMSEYER, J. MARK. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by RAMSEYER, J. MARK

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by RAMSEYER, J. MARK. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Second-Best Justice: The Virtues of Japanese Private Law

The Fable of the Keiretsu: Urban Legends of the Japanese Economy

Japanese Law: An Economic Approach (Studies in Law and Economics)

Japanese Law: An Economic Approach (Studies in Law and Economics)

Measuring Judicial Independence: The Political Economy of Judging in Japan (Studies in Law and Economics)

Discrimination in Modern Japan: Case Studies in Identity Politics

Odd Markets in Japanese History: Law and Economic Growth (Political Economy of Institutions and Decisions)

The Politics of Oligarchy: Institutional Choice in Imperial Japan (Political Economy of Institutions and Decisions)

Odd Markets in Japanese History: Law and Economic Growth (Political Economy of Institutions and Decisions)

The Politics of Oligarchy: Institutional Choice in Imperial Japan (Political Economy of Institutions and Decisions)