Like China, Japan has a tradition of state-controlled bank lending for fuelling the economy. Both countries have seen corruption problems in a system where capital is allocated by government banks, instead of through free market mechanisms such as the stock and bond markets.
Woods, a writer for the Economist, writes with a pen dipped in acid about the glaring ethical and business deficiencies he saw in Japan in the early 1990s.
Woods is an early version of the school of writers who emerged after the Asian Financial Crisis in the late 1990s. Essentially, they argue that Asia's 'miracle' was actually based far more on underworld connections, crony...
