ABSTRACT

I. Preface As the Japanese economy is moving toward oligopolistic structure under liberalization of capital, we witness lively discussions about business groups such as Mitsui, Mitsubishi, and Sumitomo. Apart from topical discussions, the analysis of these business groups presents an important problem to economics, since business grouping is a salient feature of Japan’s productive structure. We can, of course, count several points which should be studied in connection with business groups, such as their earnings based on financial analysis or their role in the circular flows and reproductive structure of the Japanese economy. In this paper, however, we examine business groups by inquiring into what firms belong to which business groups and how they are tied together in forming these groups. In other words, we focus on the associative relationships among firms in our analysis of business groups. We think that this is a basic point that precedes all analysis of business groups.