Corporate Governance and Antitrust: Lessons from Japanese Occupation Policy

Mark J. Ramseyer

Chapter 4 in Research Handbook on Competition and Corporate Law, 2025, pp 67-82 from Edward Elgar Publishing

Abstract: Corporate governance and competition policy involve distinct and largely unrelated issues. Governance goes to the way men and women associated with a firm decide what it will do. Competition policy goes to the relations among firms in an industry. Governance involves decisions internal to the firm – primarily among shareholders, the senior officers, and boards of directors. Competition policy involves relations external to the firm – primarily among firms in the same or adjacent industries. Unfortunately, after the Second World War, the Allied (primarily U.S.) forces in Japan confused governance and competition. Theirs was a largely haphazard economic logic. Operating on the thought that diversified conglomerates exploited consumers, they dissolved the largest of the conglomerates. On the thought that those who owned multiple firms (in any industry) exploited consumers, they banned holding companies.

Keywords: Keiretsu; Corporate Groups; Allied Occupation; Zaibatsu Dissolution; Holding Companies; Make or Buy (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
ISBN: 9781803920542
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