Home | Databases | WorldLII | Search | Feedback Edited Legal Collections Data

Hayashi, Shuya --- "The Goals of Japanese Competition Law" [2009] ELECD 192; in Drexl, Josef; Idot, Laurence; Monéger, Joël (eds), "Economic Theory and Competition Law" (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2009)

Book Title: Economic Theory and Competition Law

Editor(s): Drexl, Josef; Idot, Laurence; Monéger, Joël

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

ISBN (hard cover): 9781847206312

Section: Chapter 3

Section Title: The Goals of Japanese Competition Law

Author(s): Hayashi, Shuya

Number of pages: 25

Extract:

3. The goals of Japanese competition
law
Shuya Hayashi*

1 COMPETITION LAW AND POLICY IN JAPAN

1.1 The Intrinsic Value of Competition

This chapter considers the goals of competition law, focusing on the
various aspects of Japanese competition law. The general theme of the goal
of competition law, one of the most challenging and controversial in the
field, is addressed as well. Then the chapter explains the Japanese perspec-
tive on this topic, although a detailed discussion about what the goal of
competition law generally should be, will be avoided.1
The goal of competition law is difficult to explain comprehensively. Of
course, generally speaking, it is to promote free and fair competition.
Promoting competition leads to improving economic efficiency and stimu-
lating innovation and, as a result, maximizing consumer welfare. However,
what is and what should be the concept of fair and free competition is
highly controversial.2 As Kenneth Arrow has pointed out,3 many econ-
omists have focused on the consequences of resource allocation. Any


* Associate Professor of Law at Nagoya University Graduate School of Law,
Nagoya (Japan).
1 In principle, I will confine the footnotes on Japanese law to the materials

written in English, mainly because of space constraints.
2 Similarly, it is also controversial that the ultimate goal of competition policy

should be to maximize consumer welfare. Not a few economists think that the goal
of competition policy is to maximize net social welfare including consumer welfare.
Even if many economists accept the consumer- ...