Restrained Trade: Cartels in Japan's Basic Materials Industries

While Americans enjoy competitive prices for products imported from Japan, Japanese consumers often pay high prices for the same goods. How do Japanese industries manage to export heavily, keep prices high at home, and limit cheap imports into their own markets? Trade associations play a key role in Japan's political economy, Mark Tilton argues. They provide informal market governance that maintains high domestic prices and in some cases directly blocks foreign-made commodities. Tilton prof...