At times during the 1970s and 1980s, when the so-called anglo-saxon model of relatively unbridled financial markets was not delivering particularly good results in terms of economic growth, there was some envy of what one might depict as the institutional model of corporate ownership, as evident in Germany and Japan for example. In this model much of the equity of major businesses is closely held by friendly groups of long-term investors including one’s bankers and associate companies. It has been argued that this arrangement provides the best environment for long-term growth and stability, in contrast to the situation where businesses are exposed fully to the cut and thrust of the stock markets, which are characterised as being populated by people seeking only short-term profit and ever alert to opportunities for takeovers, asset stripping and the like. But experience of the 1990s does not support that view. Germany and Japan have been the laggards of the decade. The true cost to Japan of the longstanding cosy relationships between banks, industrial corporations and government ministries has become apparent. And we watch in some amazement the reaction among some sections 1  BIS Review 135/1999  of the political and business communities in Germany to the Vodafone/Mannesmann takeover battle an almost unprecedented (for Germany) hostile bid, no more palatable for being from abroad - along with the government’s efforts to save the Holzmann construction group, not to mention the authorities’ stout defence of the largely state-owned domestic regional banking network there.
There is no escaping the reality of this ongoing structural change if a country wants to maintain its competitiveness over the long term. There have also been increasing calls of late for free trade to be curbed because it is not ‘fair’ for certain countries. In this context, the concept of ‘fairness’ is applied in entirely different ways. It is used in assessing bilateral trading relationships, for example, or in connection with alleged violations of existing trade rules. I would like to briefly address both these aspects. It seems rather odd to insist that trade between two countries can only be regarded as fair if the bilateral balance of trade is in equilibrium. Trade between the actors in these countries is voluntary, and therefore only takes place if all of the participants stand to benefit from the exchange. Such trade is not a zero-sum game in which one side’s gain is the other side’s loss. The view that the trade balance between two countries should be in equilibrium ignores both the reality of global value chains and also the very essence of specialisation. Today semifinished products and intermediate inputs can move back and forward across national borders 3 4  Cf. Autor et al. (2016), for example. Cf. World Trade Organization (2017), for example. Page 3/9  many times before the end product is complete. Simply netting bilateral trade flows is no basis for judging whether trade is fair or not.