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In Japan, the Goal of Carbon Neutral in 2050 was declared by Prime Minister in October, 2020. In order to achieve the goal, the Japanese government positioned Renewable Energy Source (RES) such as PV and wind power as 'main power supply resource' and is expanding its introduction by taking various types of countermeasures to solve the problems induced by massive integration of the RES into the grid. In recent years, the power system was damaged many times by a lot of natural disaster such as strong earthquakes, typhoons and heavy rains. The situation of the Japanese power system is drastically changing due to low demand growth, massive introduction of the RES as well as evolution of the power system reform that is introduction of power markets such as energy spot market, capacity market and balancing market. In this paper, our activities toward deregulated, smart and resilient power systems are presented. © 2022 Institute of Electrical Engineers of Japan. Published by Wiley Periodicals LLC. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Japanese National Railways (JNR) was privatized in 1987 and divided into six passenger companies and one freight company. Before the structural reform, JNR was a national monopoly that owned railroad assets and provided transportation services throughout the country under government regulation. The goal of the structural reform was to eliminate management inefficiency and improve operational performance while attaining high quality of railroad transportation services at reasonable prices. To ascertain if this goal has been achieved, we examine the performance of JNR and Japan's six passenger railway companies before and after privatization and divestiture. Using data envelopment analysis on a data set from 1965 to 2017, we calculated four types of efficiency measures related to cost, operations, revenue-earning and profit-earning, by combining four phases of the companies' business activities as input and output: cost, operational resource, operational output, and total revenue. To the best of our knowledge, this study is the first holistic performance analysis of Japan's six railroad companies, using efficiency measures to assess the effects of the deregulation. The results reveal improvement in cost efficiency remains a vital issue for all six companies, and increasing trend of efficiency measures on operations is observed after the privatization. Mainland companies with an advantageous business environment do not necessarily have higher efficiency, holding more room for improvement. Further, we found that higher cost efficiency for some companies may be derived from a shrinking equilibrium in management based on a potential decline in demand, but such a passive operation could hinder managerial efforts to escape dependence on subsidy. • Japanese National Railways (JNR) was privatized in 1987. • The goal of the structural reform was to eliminate management inefficiency. • We examine the performance of JNR and Japan's six passenger railway companies. • Improvement in cost efficiency remains a vital issue for all companies. • Efficiency measures on operations increase after the privatization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• We investigate the economic effects of deregulation in Japan's intercity coach industry. • We collect data capturing the entry of bus operating companies by web-scraping. • We use a structural estimation method for the purpose of measuring the degree of competition. • We find that the markup ratios always exceed 1, which indicates that the entry of one additional firm always intensifies competition. • The competitive effect of an additional entry decreases as the number of incumbents increases. • We find that the services offered by firms in the industry are significantly differentiated. • Counterfactual analysis reveals that additional 0.76 firms can enter a market on average by differentiating their products from each other. In this paper, we investigate the economic effects of deregulation in Japan's intercity coach industry. Specifically, we examine the intensity of competition in the industry using a unique dataset, to evaluate the economic effects of two major deregulations in 2002 and 2013. The absence of organized data means there is no previous research that quantitatively evaluates the deregulations. We collect data capturing the entry of bus operating companies by web-scraping and use a structural estimation method developed in econometrics for the purpose of measuring the degree of competition. Our empirical analysis yields the following three main results. First, we find that the markup ratios always exceed 1, which indicates that the entry of one additional firm always intensifies competition. Specifically, the markup gained by one firm under duopoly is estimated to be about three quarters of that under monopoly. Second, the competitive effect of an additional entry decreases as the number of incumbents increases. This result is obtained irrespective of the mode of competition. Third, we find that the services offered by firms in the industry are significantly differentiated. Counterfactual analysis reveals that additional 0.76 firms can enter a market on average by differentiating their products from each other. These results provide useful insights into the development of competition policy pertaining to the contemporary transportation industry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyzes the policy process toward farmland consolidation and deregulation in Japan. The current Abe administration has introduced so-called Farmland Banks to facilitate land transfers to expanding farms, including general corporations, which have long been banned from farmland access in Japan. The paper argues that farmland deregulation puts the ‘incumbent’ local stakeholders of farmland governance, such as local agricultural cooperatives, local administrations, and not least farmers themselves, at risk of losing access to state support and influence. At the same time, the responsibilities for coordinating farmland consolidation have been placed onto the same local stakeholders. The state of local farmland governance has long been critical to impeding coordinated consolidation, whereas deregulation facilitates ‘predatory’ corporate farmland use. In contrast, evidence from Hikawa Town in Shimane Prefecture shows how exceptionally strong local control over farmland enables consolidation—albeit in the ‘defensive’ interests of the local incumbents. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent aviation deregulation is producing structural changes within leisure industries in many parts of the world. This paper reviews the development of low cost carriers (LCCs) and assesses its effects on both of domestic and international charter markets in Japan since 2007. Furthermore, this paper analyzes the effect of scheduled services deregulation on international tourism to Japanese regional areas in relation to charter services. The results suggest that in the domestic market, LCC operations have seldom impacted charter traffic due to the differences in target markets and routes. In the international market, LCCs launched scheduled services to Japan but mainly on high demand routes. The deregulation of scheduled services led to a passenger shift from charters to newly scheduled flights and a concentration of tourist arrivals in regional centres. It also led to a decline in international tourist arrivals in some remote destinations. This paper indicates a current trend in which charter business is still an important sector in aviation and leisure markets. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Japanese government initiated a series of regulatory reforms in the mid-1990s. The Japanese urban gas industry consists of various sized private and non-private firms. Numerous previous studies find that deregulation leads to productivity improvements. We extend the literature by analyzing deregulation, privatization, and other aspects of a regulated industry using unique firm level data. This study measures productivity to evaluate the effect of the deregulation reform. Using data from 205 firms from 1993 to 2004, we find that the deregulation effect differs depending on firm size. Competitive pressure contributes to advanced productivity. The deregulation of gas sales to commercial customers is the most important factor for advancing productivity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: There is no questioning the immensity of change in Tokyo’s urban landscape over the last few decades, despite the difficulties faced by the Japanese economy. This transformation results from a vigorous promotion of urban restructuring by the state and a keen uptake by corporations. The question examined here is the extent to which Tokyo fits into a palette of policies generally seen as neoliberal and, more generally, how and where Tokyo fits into global narratives of urban change. In order to put some perspective on the nature of urban change in Tokyo, three themes are pursued here that are generally considered to indicate a neoliberal policy turn: a territorial rescaling designed to concentrate energies on places of economic strength; a relaxation of regulations facilitating urban restructuring; and housing and other social policies resulting in residential segregation and producing greater social inequality which finds a spatial expression. In doing this, the paper reviews recent debates in the literature on Tokyo, debates that suggest a difference in view between those who see urban life-spaces as conditioned increasingly by a neoliberal policy approach and others for whom the pattern and spaces of life in Tokyo are colored by a more distinct set of policies molded by the (neo-) developmental state. The paper concludes by arguing that only some elements of a ‘neoliberal urban inventory’ are present in the urban landscape of Tokyo, that they exist within a recognisably neoliberal discursive framework, and that this is best conceptualized within a wider East Asian framework. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

This article analyses the politics of Japanese labour-market deregulation since the 1990s with reference to the cases of the 1999 and 2003 amendments to the Temporary Work Agency Law. It demonstrates that factors such as the loss of political power by labour unions vis-à-vis employers and the resulting significant changes in labour policy-making structures enabled the LDP government to implement ‘extensive’ labour-market deregulation policies related to ‘non-regular’ employment. The decline of the left by the 1980s and the economic stagnation after the collapse of the bubble economy against a background of globalisation led to the establishment of the Deregulation Committee, which represented business interests and exerted strong policy influence due to the Cabinet's adoption of its policy proposals. In addition, labour unions lost political power as a result of factors such as their inability to maintain common policy stances towards labour-market deregulation and the reduced influence of ‘tripartite’ policy-making among labour, employer and public representatives in the advisory councils of the Ministry of Labour. This article contributes to the literature on Japanese political economy by showing an ‘exceptional’ case of extensive economic reform in Japan and its political reasons. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article analyzes the particular circumstances of temporary dispatched workers ( haken rōdōsha) and a feature of their job insecurity as one facet of the growing inequality in contemporary Japanese society, focusing on the relative ease with which these workers are dismissed both legally and in practice. By contrasting with other more familiar forms of insecure labor in Japan, the paper examines the triangular relationship involving the three parties that characterize dispatched labor: the user, the employer, and the employee. The Worker Dispatching Act, which was enacted and then deregulated, enabled Japanese corporations to use dispatched workers while securing the capacity to remove them from their workplaces as a business transaction and not within the bounds of an employer-employee relationship. Using the theoretical framework of risk, the paper analyzes the emergence and spread of the triangular labor relationship as risk being shifted from the corporate level to the individual dispatched workers. It examines the consequences of the shift of risk by introducing cases of dismissal from fieldwork conducted during the global recession over the winter of 2009. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sweden and Japan represent two different positions regarding policymaking when faced with similar crises of the bank systems. Different institutional settings led the main actors to different paths of reactions in order to avoid blame. In the Japanese case, the very close relationship between private banks and the Ministry of Finance, in combination with the lesser degree of widespread perceptions of a system crisis, made it more urgent as well as possible to conceal the actual state of affairs for the politicians. Confronted with the threat of losing power over the financial administration to a new agency, the ministry postponed the reforms in order to conceal the deep financial problems. The institutional setting was different in Sweden. Deregulation had separated the government from the administration of banks. Among the public deteriorating economic conditions were easily connected to the banks. This brought about political unity. It was possible to put the blame on the banks and take the credit for the efforts to tidy up the mess without losing credibility. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article reexamines the period of the Japanese bubble (1985--1990) and emphasizes ill-supervised and ill-sequenced financial deregulation as a key proximate factor. Given the subsequent costs of this political choice, what explains such a path of domestic financial deregulation without the establishment of corresponding supervisory institutions? I argue that the suboptimal Japanese outcome represents the equilibrium point for political leaders who had to balance global pressures to deregulate the economy, corporate pressures to liberalize finance, and domestic resistance by an array of politically connected interest groups. The government chose ill-supervised financial deregulation as the path of least political resistance and the golden bullet that could both defuse trade tensions with the United States and readjust the Japanese political economy in a harmless way. Instead, as they interacted with other factors, the choices made in the early 1980s destabilized the Japanese system and carried the seeds of the ensuing financial crisis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines how pensions are interwoven with the public and private financial system in Japan and the consequences for pension reform. A growing literature focuses on the multifaceted ways in which pensions are interwoven with the larger political economy. This study builds on this literature and finds that (a) public and private pensions have been integrated deeply into Japan's system of developmental finance, (b) this integration has created new economic and political problems as governments have attempted to shift away from its developmental model through deregulation, liberalization, and administrative reform, and (c) because pension reform is intimately linked with these reforms, it involves addressing fundamental issues regarding the role of the state, finance, and firms. These findings collectively illustrate that pension reform is not only driven by issues of fiscal viability and benefit levels, but also by the nature of the way in which pensions are integrated into a country's system of finance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Presents news briefs concerning addiction as of January 2004. Deregulation of Japanese alcohol sales; South African doctors' call for an alcohol injury fund; Professional development opportunities from the U.S. National Institute on Drug Abuse; News from the National Drug Research Institute in Perth, Australia.

Focuses on the transformation of the nuclear energy and international nuclear power industry. Deregulation or liberalization of wholesale and retail electricity markets; Consolidation of the nuclear steam supply system manufacturers in North America, Europe, and Japan; Financial crisis in nuclear power-plant operators in Great Britain.

Examines the definitive or probable consequences of the movement toward deregulation of telecommunications on freedom of expression on the Internet in the U.S., Germany and Japan. Discussion on the U.S. Constitution's First Amendment; Provisions of Germany's Article 5 of the Basic Law on freedom of expression; Policy programs of the Japanese government aimed at realizing its free-speech goal; Views of Japanese Internet users on privacy.

Japanese universities have been tightly controlled by the Ministry of Education and it has often been pointed out that their autonomy has been ambiguous. In the late 1990s, however, the Japanese government started the debate about introducing an Independent Administrative Institution system in order to deregulate its authority and to make the relationship between the government and national universities clear. If this system were actually introduced, universities in Japan would not only enjoy a great amount of autonomy, but would also face financial problems. The reality is unclear so far, but some national universities have already started to reform themselves radically in preparation for the introduction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Discusses the challenges for telecommunications regulation which are emerging with the progress of competition and the introduction of multimedia services in the Japanese Telecommunications market. Details on the creation of universal service in the country's telecommunications market as a result of this progress; Factors including cooperation among regulators that are required to accomodate the changes in the market.

Outlines the impact and preliminary results of deregulation on telecommunications in Japan. Interconnection requirements in Japan and NTT company's approaches; Details on the cable television business in Japan.

Analyzes the January 1998 agreement between the United States (U.S.) and Japan for the liberalization of the trans-Pacific bilateral aviation market. Overview of the 1952 U.S.-Japan Civil Air Transport Agreement and the resulting conflict; Role of code-sharing in reaching the 1998 agreement; Implications of the 1998 agreement for U.S.-Japan relations.

Focuses on the deliberations and conclusions made by the Japanese panel of the United States-Japan 21st Century Committee on Japanese deregulation. Problems faced by Japan; Factors that drive economic reforms in Japan; Regulatory reform proposals on each of Japan's economic sectors.

From 1980 to 1983, the top priority in Japanese politics was "administrative reform" (gyosei kaikaku), a major campaign to reduce the budget deficit and attack the "government is too big" problem. The campaign included direct controls on spending, deregulation, privatization of public corporations, paring down of the administrative machinery, reevaluation of welfare and other policies and a good deal of ideology. As a political process, administrative reform was unique in postwar Japan.

This article examines proposed economic policy change in Japan that should make the country become more efficient and commercially competitive. The author outlines the proposed legislation which will reform the financial and securities transaction systems. The legislation will eliminate some of the demarcations based on bank types which will allow banks to enter new areas of business and promote healthy competition.

Reports on the expansion of the biotech sector in Japan in the recent years. Transformation to a public company of cell therapy firm Medinet; Benefits to the biotech industry due to changes in Japan's economic structure and deregulation; Reluctance of pharmaceutical companies to partner with small biotechnology companies; Discouragement from the inflexible labor market to change careers.