At the end of the 19th century “Japan transformed from a relatively poor, predominantly agricultural economy specialized in the exports of unprocessed, primary products to an economy specialized in the export of manufactures in under fifteen years.“
How did it achieve such a feat?
“In a remarkable new paper, Juhász, Sakabe, and Weinstein show how the key to this transformation was a massive effort to translate and codify technical information in the Japanese language. This state-led initiative made cutting-edge industrial knowledge accessible to Japanese entrepreneurs and workers in a way that was unparalleled among non-Western countries at the time.“
Japan has steadily but surely become more shareholder-friendly – more talk about profitability and actual shareholder returns (see chart, source), more shareholder proposals and M&A (here).
If you split it up into insiders (financial/corporate) and outsiders (everyone else), the former ownership peaked at 70% during the bubble years and has come down to 20%.
If you have ever invested in Japanese stocks it can feel like learning all over again.
This is a really great article written by a westerner fluent in Japanese who has spent his whole professional career in Japan including starting a business.
