Publisher's Synopsis
Rapidly rising share prices in the 1980s served to hide significant inefficiencies in the Japanese securities markets, many of which derive directly from the operation of the regulatory system.While these inefficiencies are becoming increasingly costly and transparent in the more sober market environment of the 1990s, the regulatory structure at the heart of the problem remains fundamentally untouched. The European Community, meanwhile, is working to construct a Community-wide regulatory umbrella for securities markets, and is in danger of succumbing to the most damaging tendency of the Japanese authorities.This is to view the markets not in terms of their ultimate services, but rather in terms of the interests of incumbent service providers. Directives which are supposed to facilitate free and open cross-border competition are instead being used to protect Member State producer interests.
