Small Business In Korea Japan And Taiwan

Despite similar histories, cultures, and positions in the international system, Korea, Japan, and Taiwan have followed distinct modernization trajectories. The differences in the effect of financial policies on small businesses in the three countries are explained and their similarities in the process of policy-change over time are traced. An analytical framework is proposed after the working terminology is described. Two factors explain financial policies on small businesses: the degree of organization of small businesses (SMEs) and the type of regime coalition. Two measures of SME organization are used: organizational cohesion and membership size. Postwar "dirigiste" regime coalitions in the three countries are classified as growth-oriented and stability-oriented, and it is argued that the "dirigiste" coalition politics model explains both snapshot differences and important similarities in processes of policy change. Statistic variations and dynamic changes in financial policy on small businesses are discussed in the Korean, Japanese, and Taiwanese contexts, respectively. The findings suggest that economic policymaking in East Asia is explained not only by technocratic preferences of an elite bureaucracy but also by political exigencies and the choices of the regime coalition. It was not crises that dictated the changes in SME-related financial policies, but the shifting balance of political power between regime coalitions.(CBS).