In a 'Columbia Law Review' article published in 1999 -- "Lifetime
Employment: Labor Peace and the Evolution of Japanese Corporate
Governance" -- authors Gilson and Roe maintain that the Japanese practice of constricting the external labor market is responsible for firms' willingness to invest in human capital. They specifically reject the proposition that Japan's institution of
lifetime employment could be the impetus for such corporate outlay. This paper contends, however, that social norms, coupled with a divergent development of Japan's employment law, gave rise to its lifetime employment policy and that this resulting policy accounts for employers' willingness to invest in human capital. The paper argues that a closed market is the result -- not the cause -- of corporate investment in employees.