ABSTRACT
The more things change, the more they remain the same. Or so it seems with Japanese corporate governance. Over the past decade, the formal institutional environment for Japanese corporate governance has been reformed significantly and at an accelerated pace. In response, some important new trends in corporate practice may be developing. Yet despite substantial legal reform and a decade after Japan’s economic problems emerged, there has been no sea change in Japanese corporate governance practices. To adopt a metaphor favored in new institutional economics literature, the rules of the game have changed; whether the play of the game will change, however, is still an open question.
