Race for the Exits: The Unraveling of Japan's System of Social Protection

Contrary to all expectations, Japan's long-term recession has provoked no sustained political movement to replace the nation's malfunctioning economic structure. The country's basic social contract has so far proved resistant to reform, even in the face of persistently adverse conditions. In Race for the Exits, Leonard J. Schoppa explains why it has endured and how long it can last.

The postwar Japanese system of "convoy capitalism" traded lifetime employment for male workers against governm...