The Structure of the Japanese Stock Market

The Japanese stock market is characterized by two prominent features. First, stock prices have been extremely volatile over the past ten years. Second, the market is dominated by cross-shareholdings and stagnant individual stock ownership. So, there are two purposes on this paper. The first is to assess the effects of stock cross-holdings on the stock market. The second is to look at recent stock price fluctuations, in the bubble period before 1990 and during the subsequent collapse. It will be recognized that these two features are interrelated.