Steven K. Vogel

International Games With National Rules: How Regulation Shapes Competition in ‘Global’ Markets

In the most global of industries, such as telecommunications and finance, international competition remains governed primarily by national regulations. When multiple national regulators govern international markets, the regulators themselves compete. But do they compete in laxity, trying to reduce regulation as much as possible, or do they compete in regulatory subsidy, trying to rig regulations to favor domestic firms? These questions are examined in Britain and Japan. In telecommunications and finance there has been no single global trend toward regulatory laxity or regulatory subsidy; national regulations still set the terms for international competition; the game of regulatory competition is so complex that it is difficult to find any single strategy for winning; and national authorities will continue to have difficulty in shifting regulation to the international level.

Cat's Paws and Catapults: Mechanical Worlds of Nature and People

Noncoincident worlds two schools of design the matter of magnitude surfaces, angles and corners the stiff and the soft two routes to rigidity pulling versus pushing engines for the mechanical worlds puttign engines to work about pumps, jets and ships making widgets copying, inretrospect copying, present and prospective contrasts, convergences and consequences.

U.S.-Japan Relations in a Changing World

September 2001 marked the fiftieth anniversary of the signing of the San Francisco Treaty, formally ending the Second World War. In signing this treaty, Japan fundamentally transformed its position on the world stage. It established itself in the vanguard of the burgeoning cold war bulwark against the Soviet Union and its communist satellites, and wed itself to the United States through economic, political, and security ties that persist today. The half century since the establishment of the San Francisco system has seen highs and lows in the relations between the two countries, continuing even into the current war on terrorism. This new book evaluates the changing relationship between the two great powers, providing in-depth analysis on a variety of topics. It scrutinizes the historical context, providing the reader with predictive tools for understanding events as they unfold. Instead of looking at the U.S.-Japan relationship one issue at a time, this book examines specific trends and then analyzes how these trends affect the relationship as a whole. This innovative approach allows the reader to view several perspectives simultaneously, and it compels the contributors to assemble clear causal arguments that detail what each factor can and cannot explain. The result is a cogent and convincing appraisal of the status and future of U.S.-Japan relations after fifty years of peaceful coexistence.