The chapters in this volume approach this question from five directions: international integration, technological innovation, labor relations and production systems, financial regimes and corporate governance, and domestic politics. In their introduction, Yamamura and Streeck summarize the crises of performance and confidence that have beset German and Japanese capitalism and revived the question of competitive convergence. The editors ask whether the two countries, confronted with the political and economic exigencies of technological revolution and economic internationalization, must abandon their distinctive institutions and the competitive advantages these have yielded in the past, or whether they can adapt and retain such institutions, thereby preserving the social cohesion and economic competitiveness of their societies.