Tokyo's booms and busts: Placing Japan in the global financial network

Keenan, Liam; Wójcik, Darius

Abstract

Tokyo is conspicuous for its now decades-long absence in the headlines of global financial news. In this article, we revisit the evolution of Tokyo as an international financial centre through the lens of Global Financial Networks (GFN). Drawing on insights from high-level interviews, we present a chronology of Japan's financial history between 1980 and 2020. This reveals a pattern wherein financial sector reforms and financial centre initiatives are repeatedly interrupted by crises. The GFN framework helps to demonstrate how structure and agency intertwine at the global, national, and local scales to shape this reform-boosterism-crisis cycle. Nationally and locally, we find that despite repeated attempts by coalitions of actors to elevate the status of Tokyo, engrained cultural and political economic conditions have hindered its development into a truly global financial centre. Globally, these conditions have been structured and amplified by Japan's historical position as a rule-taker in the governance of international finance. These factors have conspired to situate Japan on the periphery of the GFN. a position aggravated by the rising financial power of China.

Citation

Keenan, L., & Wójcik, D. (2022). Tokyo's booms and busts: Placing Japan in the global financial network. Finance and Society, 8(2), 149-168. https://doi.org/10.2218/finsoc.7765

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Jul 1, 2022
• Online Publication Date: Nov 30, 2022
• Publication Date: 2022
• Deposit Date: Jul 11, 2023
• Publicly Available Date: Jul 12, 2023
• Journal: Finance and Society
• Electronic ISSN: 2059-5999
• Publisher: Finance and Society
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 8
• Issue: 2
• Pages: 149-168
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.2218/finsoc.7765
• Keywords: Sociology and Political Science; Social Sciences (miscellaneous); Finance; History and Philosophy of Science; Arts and Humanities (miscellaneous)
• Public URL: https://nottingham-repository.worktribe.com/output/22992271
• Publisher URL: http://financeandsociety.ed.ac.uk/article/view/7765