Japan's Tougher New Antimonopoly Law: Why It Passed and How It Will Change Japan

 Last month the Diet passed a remarkable revision to the Antimonopoly Law that increases penalties and gives new powers to the Japan Fair Trade Commission.  Perhaps the most significant feature of the revisions is that the impetus for them came from within the LDP.  The lecture will discuss the politics behind the new reforms and consider their likely impact on the economy, with reference to two industry case studies, steel and telecommunications.

Short CV:
Mark Tilton is Associate Professor of Political Science at Purdue University. His research is in the field of comparative political economy and looks at the politics of change in Japanese, German and American antitrust policy and market access.  His publications include “Restrained Trade: Cartels in Japan’s Basic Materials Industries” (Cornell University Press, 1996), “Regulation and Regulatory Reform in Japan: Is Japan Really Changing Its Ways?”, co-edited with Lonny Carlile (The Brookings Institution Press, 1998) and “Ideas, Institutions and Interests in the Shaping of Telecommunications Reform,” in Linda Weiss, ed.,  “States in the Global Economy” (Cambridge University Press, 2003).