Globalization, corporate finance, and coordinated capitalism : pension finance in Germany and Japan

This paper analyzes 'globalization' as the interplay between domestic and 'foreign' economic agents that seek to break up nationally contained and/or institutionally constrained markets with the aim of altering distributive outcomes in their favor. I take as my exemplary cases the recent opening up of the Japanese and German pension markets. US-Japan trade negotiations and European market integration provide foreign competitors with entry into the pension market and increasingly allow domestic firms to exit the national 'regulatory regime'. The internationalization of the market for investment capital has made 'regime exit' more attractive for many German and Japanese firms while the international convergence of transparency rules and accounting standards are increasingly overhauling specific national business practices.