Introduction: a puzzle for economic theories Robert Boyer and Toshio Yamada Part I Institutional interpretations and theories 1. Japanese capitalism and the companyist compromise Toshio Yamada 2. The hierarchical market-firm nexus as the Japanese mode of regulation Akinori Isogai, Akira Ebizuka and Hiroyasu Uemura 3. Disproportionate productivity growth and accumulation regimes Hiroyuki Uni Part II The wage labour nexus, forms of competition, financial regime: major structural transformations 4. The capital-labour compromise and the financial system: a changing hierarchy Hironori Tohyama 5. 'Industrial welfare' and 'company-ist' regulation : an eroding complementarity Masanori Hanada and Yasuro Hirano 6. The financial mode of regulation in Japan and its demise Naoki Nabeshima Part III What crisis and what futures? 7. The wage labour nexus challenged: more the consequence than the cause of the crisis Robert Boyer and Michel Juillard 8. Growth, distribution and structural change in the post-war Japanese economy Hiroyasu Uemura 9. Beyond the East Asian economic crisis Yasuo Inoue 10. Some limitations on Japanese competitiveness enjamin Coriat, Patrice Geoffron and Marianne Rubenstein Conclusion: an epochal change ... but uncertian future Robert Boyer and Toshio Yamada