Vertical Restraints and Market Access

This paper analyzes vertical restraints in relation to market access issues. In Section II we briefly review the recent three major trade conflicts between Japan and the USA in light of vertical restraints. In Section III we review the major policy lessons of the economics literature of vertical restraints, and analyze whether we need a special treatment for vertical restraints abroad for a market access reason. In Section IV we evaluate the policy options towards foreign foreclosure and suggest that nondiscriminatory application of foreign or home competition policy should be the mechanism to address such concern instead of trade policy actions such as voluntary import expansions.