Contributions in Economics and Economic The Politics of Industrial Recruitment: Japanese Automobile Investment and Economic Development in the American States, (Hardcover)

The essays in this volume explore the phenomenon of foreign industrial recruitment in terms of the experience of six mid-American states--Michigan, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Kentucky, and Tennessee--in attracting Japanese automobile assembly facilities. This experience and the choice of plant sites by Mazda, Honda, Fuji-Isuzu, Mitsubishi, Toyota, and Nissan was invariably determined by multi-state negotiations and escalating state government incentive packages. To understand this phenomenon and its consequences, the essays in this volume sketch its comparative historical, economic, and legal dimensions; examine the dynamics of Japanese automobile investment in terms of the six site-specific studies; and then place these industrial recruitment experiences within a wider framework of federal-state relations and the prospects for a national industrial policy.

Part I illuminates the background to and the comparative setting for the mid-American competition for Japanese automobile plants in the era of international corporate flight. Part II carefully probes the dynamics of development in terms of six site-specific studies. Finally, Part III places these six state industrial recruitment experiences within the wider framework of federal-state relations. This book makes informative reading for anyone interested in the automobile industry, Japanese-American trade polices, and federal-state relations.