International Corporate Finance: Value Creation with Currency Derivatives in Global Capital Markets, + Website

CHAPTER 12

Asian Finance and Banking

Patrick J. Schena

The Fletcher School, Tufts University

The Japanese firm is less interested in short-term profits and more interested with the long-run.... The company's capacity to think in long-range terms is made possible in part by their relative higher reliance on bank loans than on the sale of securities to meet their capital requirements.

Ezra Vogel in Japan as Number One

The dynamic growth that propelled East Asian firms onto the world stage in the period after World War II led academics and practitioners to search for new business paradigms. The Japanese corporate form in particular was studied for its ability to foster both competitiveness and good governance. First published in 1979, Ezra Vogel's work, Japan as Number One,¹ was among the first to focus attention on corporate business and financial practices in East Asia through a decidedly Japanese lens. This research spurred a reconsideration of the nature and raison d'être of the firm as understood by the Anglo-American capitalistic model and to question the paramount role of shareholders. In the following years, with the subsequent rapid development of the People's Republic of China (PRC), the Republic of Korea, and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) bloc and their integration into the global economy, the idiosyncrasies of Asian finance and banking have assumed added complexity and a new relevance.

Beyond its original Japan-centric focus, the story of Asian finance ...