What Can We Learn from the Past?

Abstract

Abstract This concluding chapter summarizes the important observations and lessons that were discussed in the book. It presents several economic theories, particularly on Arrow. It discusses the ‘interdependence of inventive activities, which reinforces the difficulties in achieving an optimal allocation of the results’. Copying foreign technologies enabled Japan to save different industries after World War II. Technologies were adapted and modified in order for them to be socially different from the country that originated them. Lastly, Japan's competition policy played a big role in saving several industries from vanishing during the post-war period.