Abstract
What determines the number of legal actions taken by competition authorities in Japan and the United States? The administrative performance of government agencies has been analyzed from a wide variety of perspectives.
This Chapter is based on Koki Arai (2012) “Administrative Performance and Legitimacy: An Elaboration Likelihood Approach to Competition Authorities in Japan and the United States.” Public Performance & Management Review, 36(1): 54–78.
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- 1.
Thanks for the mention of the theories of politician/bureaucracy interaction by anonymous referees.
- 2.
Muris (1986) criticized the FTC for its lack of marketability.
- 3.
The basis of this systematic analysis is seen in Krause (2008), whose analysis was based on the main administrative body’s risk preference (preference for risk/avoidance of risk).
- 4.
- 5.
Some authors support one of three related views: correspondence with the established rules, public acceptance of the rules, and realization of the public interest (Sasaki 1999).
- 6.
For further details, see the Senate hearings at http://judiciary.senate.gov/hearings/testimony.cfm?id=3700&wit_id=7670/. The settlement between the Justice Department and Microsoft may have lessened the antitrust authority’s legitimacy.
- 7.
In addition, the European Parliament has greater influence on the European Commission and plays an important role in determining policies because it is elected and thus legitimately reflects public opinion.
- 8.
The discussion here does not deal with the voluntary motivation effect, namely, that the high level of legitimacy an organization has in its administration creates “motivation,” improves the power of persuasion, increases internal productivity, contributes externally to the accumulation of information, and leads to earlier yielding by the opponent. It is important to study the authority’s behavior, but the focus here is on an outer index of related factors.
- 9.
The data are from Japan Fair Trade Commission annual reports and Japan Fair Trade Commission (1997).
- 10.
See Japan Fair Trade Commission (1997); annual reports of Japan Fair Trade Commission; and www.jftc.go.jp/pressrelease/01.may/01051604.pdf, accessed October 4, 2001.
- 11.
Indeed, although many cases are the subject of scholarly articles, the total number of professional studies can create respect for the specific field of law enforcement. Legal professionals’ demographics are an index of professionals; however, it is difficult to estimate the ratio of antitrust lawyers.
- 12.
This database in Japan records the details of books, including title, author, publisher, the names of libraries and bookrooms of universities that keep the books, as well as call numbers and other information. See http://webfront.nii.ac.jp and www.nii.ac.jp/ir/dbmember/bcat-j.html, accessed October 4, 2001.
- 13.
The Antimonopoly Act states that “the purpose of this Act is, by prohibiting private monopolization, the unreasonable restraint of trade and unfair trade practices … to promote fair and free competition, to stimulate the creative initiative of entrepreneurs, to encourage business activities, to raise the level of employment and actual national income, and thereby to promote the democratic and wholesome development of the national economy as well as to assure the interests of the general consumers.”
- 14.
On the other hand, the coefficient for Budget is very similar to that of the Personnel variable, so it was omitted.
- 15.
It is important to test for nonstationarity of picking up the econometric specification. The ADF test and the KPSS test were used for the nonstationarity. Some variables do not have a unit root, but others do not have a clear indication due to sample number limitation.
- 16.
The log-linear type equation performs better than log-log, hyperbolic, and is a simple multinominal equation from the viewpoint of adjusted R2 and AIC.
- 17.
The number of Justice Department sources is available at www.justice.gov/atr/, accessed October 4, 2001.
The ADF test and KPSS test are used for the nonstationarity. Some variables do not have a unit root, but others do not have a clear indication due to sample number limitation. See Table 4.
- 18.
See the remarks by Secretary-General Itoda in the roundtable discussion “On recent cases of violation of the Antimonopoly Act,” Fair Trade, No. 513 (July 1993).
- 19.
See ICN-CPI Work Plan 2008–2009, mentioned in www.georgemasonlawreview.org/doc/17–1_Sokol.pdf, accessed October 4, 2001.
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Arai, K. (2019). Administrative Performance and Legitimacy: An Elaboration Likelihood Approach to Competition Authorities in Japan and the United States. In: Law and Economics in Japanese Competition Policy. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-8188-1_12
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