Symposium on Market
and Marketization Revisited

Theoretical and Historical Perspectives
Based on Japanese and Chinese Experience

NAKAGANE Katsuji
Professor of the Faculty of Economics
Chinese Economy

Symposia jointly organized by both the Faculty of Economics at the University of Tokyo and the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS), Institute of Economics have been held several times so far since the middle of the 1980s.
Many faculty members have been involved in such international exchange programs, writing papers mostly on China's economic reforms, some of which were edited and published as Chugoku-no Keizaikaikaku (China's Economic Reforms), for instance, by Tokyo Daigaku Shuppankai (University of Tokyo Press) in 1994.
These symposia have been held every two years, alternately in Tokyo and Beijing, sponsored by private foundations and/or grant-in-aid of the Japanese Ministry of Education and Culture.
In 1996, the symposium was held in the faculty at Todai on November 29 and 30, supported by the Egusa and Nomura Foundations. It was opened for the audience to a limited extent, inviting several scholars from outside the campus. Students at the University were also allowed to attend.

China is now in the process of transforming her traditional planned system into the so-alledged "socialist market economy".
Japan, on the other hand, is facing a new challenge of her fundamental systemic change, from the well-known "Japanese system" or deeply government committed system to the less regulated and more market based one. Market seems now to be revisited in its effectiveness as a theoretical concept and a policy implementation mechanism.
The symposium of 1996 aimed at rethinking about such basic concepts as market and its process, or marketization, based on new theoretical thinking and through making comparisons of historical experiences in two different countries, Japan and China.
All of the subjects discussed are directly related to either market or marketization. The names of Todai's reporters and their paper titles are as follows.

Katsuhito Iwai, Professor of the Faculty of Economics,
"Capitalist Enterprises and Private Ownership"

Hitoshi Matsushima, Associate Professor of the Faculty of Economics,
"Theoretical Foundation of Firm and Market"

Yoshiro Miwa, Professor of the Faculty of Economics,
"Market and Marketization in Japan"

Toru Nakanishi, Associate Professor of the Faculty of Economics,
"Market and Customary Economy in Economic Development: Cases in the Philippines and Japan Compared"

Ryuichiro Matsubara, Associate Professor of the Faculty of Liberal Arts,
"Economic Thoughts behind the Market"

Masato Maruyama, Associate Professor of the Faculty of Liberal Arts,
"Market and Environmental Problems"

The CASS reporters and the titles of their papers are as follows.

Zhang Zhuoyuan, Director of the Institute of Economics,
"Socialist Market Economics in China: Its Implications and Characteristics"

Zhu Shaowen, Professor of the Institute of Economics,
"Historical Necessity of China's Socialist Market Economy: Criticism of Soviet-style Planned System"

Zhu Lin, Professor of the Institute of Economics,
"Poverty Alleviation in the Transition of Rural China"

Zhu Yingui, Professor of the Institute of Economics,
"On Development of Securities Markets in China of the Late 19th and the Early 20th Century"

Zuo Dabei, Associate Professor of the Institute of Economics,
"Trade of Processed Manufactures in China"

Zhan Xiaohong, Vice Editor of the Institute's journal Economic Research,
"Urban Unemployment Problems in China's Market Reforms"

In 1997 the same style of symposium will be held in Beijing, in which these reporters are expected to make their papers more complete to be published, hopefully in both countries almost at the same time.