Quantitative Economic Geography on Hysteretic Effects of Factories and Locational Transformations of Japanese Enterprises

本研究以日本制造业的新设工厂、转移工厂、关闭工厂和原地变更工厂的数量数据为基础，对制造业的区位迁移过程进行了解释。日本式的公司治理制度自1990年代初以来发生了巨大变化。主要的公司集团已经重组，以应对主要银行关系的转变，并积极利用并购来在全球市场的竞争中生存。这些企业组织结构的变化正在加速日本局部地区工厂的选择性关闭和就业的大幅下降。最近国内新设工厂数量的大幅回升，是由于企业的经营功能集中化、核心技术保留在“母厂”等企业战略的需要。全球化下的企业组织结构调整和人口减少对日本的地区结构产生了巨大影响。自1990年代中期以来的这些变化导致了增长的大都市地区和下降的地方地区之间的鲜明对比。在此背景下，日本的国土政策和产业区位政策发生了重要的转折。与地方扶持政策导致的工厂分散化和通过金融转移实现区域均衡不同，依靠区域经济和提高国际竞争力被认为是一项重要政策。

This research intends to explicate the locational adjectment processes of the manufacturing industries in Japan based on quantitative data of plant newly establishments, transfers, closures, and in-situ changes. The Japanese-style corporate governance system has drastically changed since the early 1990s. Leading corporation groups have been reorganized in response to the transformation of main bank relations and M & A has been aggressively utilized to survive competition in global markets. These changes in corporate organizational structures are accelerating selective plant closures and large employment decline in Japan's local areas. Recent significant recovery in the number of locations of new plants at homeland is due to corporate strategies, such as the need to concentrate of business functions and the need to keep core technologies in "mother factories".The restructuring of corporate organization under globalization and the decrease in population have had powerful effects on Japan's regional structure. These changes since mid 1990s led to clear contrasts between growing metropolitan regions and declining local areas. Under these circumstances, Japanese national land policy and industrial location policy have experienced an important turning point. Instead of the local supporting policies which led to the decentralization of factories and the regional equilibrium by financial transfer, in dependence of the regional economy and enhancement of international competitiveness have been thought of as an important policy.