Economists Avinash K. Dixit believe that there can be value in postponing capital investment decisions. Indeed, for many years, managers who have required net present value to be more than merely positive before making such a decision have intuitively followed the same principle.

World View. No industrialized nation can be an economic island, yet Japan continues to behave like one. In "Letter from Japan," Kenichi Ohmae writes that consumers are tired of paying for subsidy protection and higher-priced goods.

Books in Review. The news media and the government are entwined in a vicious circle of mutual manipulation, myth making, and self-interest. Journalists need crises to dramatize the news, and government officials need to appear to be responding to crises. Business, too, has had to learn to play the game of manipulating the public's perceptions.