Promoting imports to appease trade partners: Japan's new trade policies

This paper documents and analyzes Japan's various import promotion policies . Appeasing Japan's trade partners, particularly the United States, seems t o be a major goal of these policies. The import promotion efforts are best described as lowering the fixed costs of entry into the Japanese market or lowering the switching costs involved in sw itching from a domestic supplie r to a foreign one. Various models of the policies are discussed along with their different predictions as to the effects of the policies. (C) 2001 Ac ademic Press.