Illusions of liberalization: Securities regulation in Japan and the EC

by Benn Steil

Rapidly rising share prices in the 1980s served to hide significant inefficiencies in the Japanese securities markets, many of which derive directly from the operation of the regulatory system.While these inefficiencies are becoming increasingly costly and transparent in the more sober market environment of the 1990s, the regulatory structure at the heart of the problem remains fundamentally untouched. The European Community, meanwhile, is working to construct a Community-wide regulatory umbrella for securities markets, and is in danger of succumbing to the most damaging tendency of the Japanese authorities.This is to view the markets not in terms of their ultimate services, but rather in terms of the interests of incumbent service providers. Directives which are supposed to facilitate free and open cross-border competition are instead being used to protect Member State producer interests.

49 pages, Paperback

First published December 31, 1995

About the author

Benn Steil is an American economist and writer.[1] He was educated at Nuffield College, Oxford and at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. Steil is the senior fellow and director of international economics at the Council on Foreign Relations. He is the founder and editor of the journal International Finance. He has been awarded the Hayek Prize and the Spear's Book Award.