ABSTRACT
This chapter presents an assessment of how far law has figured in the analysis of the Japanese case. It entails a brief historical sketch of the place of law in the economic development of Japan with particular regard to the hypotheses of the rule of law rhetoric before an argument is developed along the lines that economic growth began in Japan long before the codification of property rights and that there is an entrenched legal tradition in Japan which understands law as the instrument of rule, as the tool rather than the limit of office. The chapter focuses on the role of law in the management of economic change and specifically in the conduct of industrial policy in Japan in the 1970s. It looks a little more closely at the meshing of law and legal informality in the confection of policy.
