Institutions, Accounting Practices and Incentives in Japanese Equity and Other Financial Markets

Abstract

There are several main types of institutional player in the Japanese financial markets. First, by virtue of their huge size, come the life insurance companies. Second only to these come the public funds, which are discussed in a separate chapter. Then come corporate pension funds, extremely underdeveloped by comparison with their counterparts in the West, but nevertheless players of growing importance in the markets. Next come securities investment trusts and the non-life insurance companies. Finally come banks, corporations and other entities investing on their own accounts, sometimes in the form of tokkin (‘special money trust’) funds, and sometimes directly. We shall review each of these categories of investor in turn, not only looking at their historical development, but also making some guesses as to what the future holds. We start by briefly discussing the different types of fund management company, and then look at the characteristics of the different pools of institutional money, to show what kind of assets they invest in and how they are developing.