THE QUESTION OF ACCESS TO THE JAPANESE MARKET

It is now widely accepted that Japan has relatively low official barri ers to merchandise, particularly manufactured goods, trade relative to other industrial countries. Yet, Japan's current account and trade su rpluses have encouraged the view that there must be special 'hidden ba rriers' to accessing the Japanese marker, and a literature has develop ed on the premise that Japanese business organizations (keiretsu) limi t foreign penetration of markers of manufactured goods. This paper sur veys the main elements of this literature and questions some of the as sumptions upon which recent American policy in this area seems to have been developed.