紀要論文

What Is Really Needed for Japan's Telecommunication Deregulation?

eng

09111247

https://doi.org/10.15002/00002123

Journal of International Economic Studies

9

13

29

1995-03

Version of Record

Although ten years have passed since Japan's telecommunication business was liberalized, development of the industry is so far only modest. Further deregulation is considered inevitable because it is widely believed that the business is stagnant chiefly because of the regulation. While debates are going on as to how and to what extent deregulation should be promoted, some discrepancy has emerged with respect to the framework of telecommunication regulation such as policy goal, policy instrument, and regulatory procedure. In the standard theory of regulation, an efficiency criterion plays an essential role. As for Japan's regulatory administration, however, there is no evidence that this criterion has ever been ranked as number one. On the contrary, one can observe an inefficient policy-mix for promoting competition and natural monopoly-type regulation such as restriction of entry and tariff control. Another possible source of inefficiency can be found in the lack of transparency in the regulatory procedure, and in the tardy development of open network. Arguments against the regulatory policy are concentrated on those issues listed above. The purpose of this paper is to clarify what is essential for Japan's regulatory policy in order to improve efficiency in the telecommunication business. As a matter of fact, there have been a lot of advice and recommendations announced toward more efficient regulation in the government as well as by business groups and scholars, of which only a few has been so far adopted. Being disgusted at the fruitless efforts, some argue for total abolition of economic regulation. The central question here, however, is not concerning whether the regulation be reformed, relaxed or abolished, but why efficiency is respected not so fully as other policy criteria. While policy objectives are generally mandated to promote public welfare, general consumers are not endowed with the countermeasures reliable enough to ensure it for themselves. Thus the public access being substantially limited, and the regulatory process is vulnerable to the influence from interest groups. This means that the regulatory governance dose not exist on the consumer's side. Japan's regulatory regime as such seems now losing its economic rationale because the cost associated with the regulation is rapidly increasing due to expanding price gap of domestic-overseas market and because of the low economic growth.

Article

AA10459262