Wage Determination and Information Sharing: An Alternative Approach to Incomes Policy?

Abstract

The flexibility of the Japanese labour market attracts attention domestically as well as abroad. It is widely believed that labour market flexibility, particularly of wages, has been highly instrumental in rapidly restoring the equilibrium of the Japanese economy with stable prices and nearly full employment through the storms of the oil crises in the 1970s. The paper first identifies the meaning of alleged wage flexibility in the context of the Japanese labour market. Next it reviews what has happened in the system of wage determination under collective bargaining, known as shuntō or synchronised wage negotiations in spring, during the adjustment years following the oil crises. The prime focus is on the functional reforms of the shuntō system as a source of renderinig flexibility to aggregate patterns of wage changes. Finally the paper attempts to interpret such developments from the viewpoint of corporatism.

Get full access to this article

View all access options for this article.

References

Aoki, Masahiko (1980), 'A Model of the Firm as a Stockholder-Employee Co-operative Game', American Economic Review 70, 4, pp. 600-10.

Aoki, Masahiko (1981), [An Analytical Framework of the Japanese Firm] , Kikan Gendai Keizai [Contemporary Economics] 43, Summer.

Economic Planning Agency (1980), [Annual Report on World Economy for Fiscal Year 1980], December.

Economic Planning Agency (1981), Annual Report on Economy for FY1981, August.

Hashimoto, Masanori (1979), 'Bonus Payments, On-the-Job Training and Lifetime Employment in Japan', Journal of Political Economy 87, 5, Part I (October), pp. 1086-104.

Komine, Takao (1982), Sekiyu to Nihon Keizai [Oil and the Japanese Economy], Tōyōkeizai, Tokyo.

Koshiro, Kazutoshi (1980), 'Dainiji Sekiyu Kiki ka no Chingin Kettei' [Wage Determination under the Second Oil Crisis] Nihon Rōdō Kyōkai Zasshi [Monthly Journal of the Japan Institute of Labour] 22, 5, pp. 2-13.

Koshiro, Kazutoshi (1981), 'Development of Collective Bargaining', mimeo, to be published in T. Shirai, ed., Contemporary Industrial Relations in Japan, University of Wisconsin Press, Madison, Wis.

Koshiro, Kazutoshi (1982a), 'Ryōkō na Koyō Kikai no Kishōsei to Nihonteki Rōshi Kankei' [Scarcity of Favourable Employment Opportunities and Japanese Industrial Relations], Nihon Rōdō Kyōkai Zasshi [Monthly Journal of the Japan Institute of Labour] 24, 1.

10.

Koshiro, Kazutoshi (1982b), 'Systems of Wage Determination in the Japanese Labour Market', paper presented at Conference on Comparative Labour Market Analysis between Australia and Japan, Australian National University, Canberra, Australia, 26-28 July.

11.

Lehmbruch, Gerhard (1981), 'Neo-Corporatist Policy Formation in Western Europe: Areas of Inquiry and Theoretical Problems', paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association, New York, 3-6 September

12.

Matsumura, Yoshiyasu and Fujinaka, Jun (1982), 'Tenkanki ni okeru Chingin Kettei Kikō' [The System of Wage Determination in the Period of Transition], graduation thesis, Economics Department, Keio University.

13.

Ujihara, Shojiro , Nitta, Michio and Matsuzaki, Yoshi (1981), 'Tekkōgyō no Rōdōkumiai' [Labour Unions in the Steel Industry], in Roshikankei Chōsakai (ed.), Tenkanki niokeru Rōshikankei no Jittai [Fact Findings of Industrial Relations in Transitional Period], University of Tokyo Press, Tokyo.

14.

Organisation for Economic Development and Cooperation (1979), Collective Bargaining and Government Policies , OECD, Paris.

15.

Pempel, T.J. and Tsunekawa, Keiichi (1979), 'Corporatism Without Labour? The Japanese Anomaly', in Schmitter and Lehmbruch, eds (1979).

16.

Schmitter, Philippe C. (1978), 'Interest Intermediation and Regime Governability: A Japanese Epilogue', mimeo, April.

17.

Schmitter, P. C. and Lehmbruch, G., eds (1979), Trends Toward Corporatist Intermediation, Sage Publications , Beverly Hills, Calif. and London.

18.

Shimada, Haruo (1982), 'Phillips Kyokusen to Nihon no Rōdōshijō Kikō' [The Phillips Curve and the Mechanism of the Japanese Labour Market: A Survey], Mita Gakkai Zasshi [Mita Journal of Economics] (Keio University) 75, 2, pp. 1-34.

19.

Shimada, Haruo , Hosokawa, Toyoaki and Seike, Atsushi (1982), 'Chingin oyobi Koyō Chōsei Katei no Bunseki' [An Analysis of Adjustment Processes of Wages and Employment] , Keizai Bunseki, Economic Planning Agency, 84, March.

20.

Yoshimura, Yosuke (1982), Daikigyō. Rōshi no Kenka Matsuri [Fighting Festival of Labor and Management], Japan Institute of Labour, Tokyo.

21.

Yoshitomi, Masaru (1981), Nihon Kenzai [Japanese Economy: A New Crisis of the World Economy and Japan], Tōyokeizai, Tokyo .