Japan's Public Pension System in the Twenty-First Century.

In this paper, the author first briefly discuss the structure of Japan's public pension system, the history of that system, the raison d'etre of a public pension sustem, some of the defects in the current system, the origins of those defects, possible ways of alleviating those defects, future prospects for Japan's public pension system in the face of rapid population aging, and proposals for reforming Japan's public pension system.PUBLIC PENSION ; SOCIAL SECURITY ; JAPAN

Are Americans more Altruistic than the Japanese Comparison of Saving and Bequest Motives.

In this paper, we analyze a variety of data on saving motives, bequest motives, and bequest division from the "Comparative Survey of Savings in Japan and the United States", a binational survey conducted in 1996 by the Institute for Posts and Telecommunications Policy of the Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications of the Government of Japan, in order to shed light on which model of household behavior applies in the two countries.HOUSEHOLD ; SAVINGS ; CONSUMPTION

Pragmatic financialisation: the role of the Japanese Post Office

The Japanese Post Office, one of the world’s largest financial institutions, was finally privatised in 2015, marking an appropriate time to examine financialisation in Japan. Literature on financialisation and changes in Japanese capitalism assumes convergence on Anglo-American capitalism with a diminishing of state power. The main argument of this paper is that financialisation is instead a more contingent process. This is put forth through an examination of how this process has been mediated by the Japanese state through the workings of the Japanese Post Office. The state has frequently shaped the direction of financialisation by intervening in the routing of household funds via the postal savings system in order to achieve its objectives in different circumstances, particularly evident in the protracted and contested nature of the post bank’s privatisation. Financialisation is thus not preordained; instead its path is hewn by crisis, catastrophe, demographics and the agency of domestic social actors