We review the facts pertaining to some recent antimonopoly cases in Japan involving interference with unauthorized imports, so-called parallel imports, and propose economic explanations for the behavior of the foreign manufacturers in these cases. Japan's intellectual property law provides a...

Directed marketing channels--known in Japan as distribution keiretsu--are more likely than others to be headed by a primary wholesaler that is vertically integrated with the manufacturer, which for foreign manufacturers entails their directly investing in Japan-based wholesale subsidiaries. I...

A measure of number of steps in the wholesale distribution chain is proposed and calculated for Japan, the United States, and Germany and for different kinds of business within Japan and within the United States. Economic factors that influence the number of wholesale steps in the distribution...

For each of the seventy Japanese four-digit SIC manufacturing industries, using annual data for 1961-90, I test the simple Cournot hypothesis of proportionality between industry price-cost margin and Herfindahl index against the non-nested alternative that the industry price-cost margin remains...

The leading economic explanation for tippingthat is, explanation why the practice is socially beneficial, not why individuals leave tips even though it is not narrowly advantageous to themis that it confers an incentive to provide personal services. This fits many instances in which tipping is...