The Japanese productivity advantage in automobile production: Can it be transferred to North America?

A number of joint ventures (JVs) have been announced recently in the automobile industry. These JVs exist for a number of reasons. One such reason is that shared development and production facilities among smaller producers can lead to shared design costs and scale economies in production. Examples of design and production sharing JVs exist. Renault (which owns 46 per cent of American Motors Corporation (AMC)) and AMC are engaged in JVs in …