This authoritative study of Japan’s environmental problems is by the country’s leading environmental economist, Shigeto Tsuru. The author places environmental issues within a socio-economic context. In providing an historical account of environmental disruption in Japan, Professor Tsuru cites a number of key cases of industrial pollution in the pre-war and post-war periods and illustrates the effectiveness of such a strategy not only for Japan but any developed country. Finally, the author proposes a set of countermeasures against environmental problems, applicable to all developed countries today, aimed at achieving a new "quality of life."

Shigeto Tsuru's profile page

Shigeto Tsuru is Professor Emeritus and former President of Hitotsubashi University. He has been deeply concerned with environmental questions since 1970 and convened a conference in Tokyo which focused on environmental problems and sparked a massive environmental cleanup. His previous publications include The Economic Development of Modern Japan (1995), Economic Theory and Capitalist Society (1994), Institutional Economics Revisited (1993) and Japan’s Capitalism: Creative Defeat and Beyond (1992).