SAKUYAMA Takumi    Department   Undergraduate School  , School of Agriculture    Position   Professor
Language	Japanese
Publication Date	2016/09
Type	Academic Journal
Peer Review	Peer reviewed
Invitation	Invited paper
Title	The Determinants of Japan's Agricultural Liberalization in the TPP Agreement: An Investigation into the Roles of Negotiating Rules
Contribution Type	Sole-authored
Journal	Journal of Food System Research
Journal Type	Japan
Publisher	Food System Research Association of Japan
Volume, Issue, Page	23(2),pp.65-74
Details	This article aims to reveal the roles of pre-determined negotiating rules, which condition Japan's agricultural liberalization commitments in the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) Agreement. Specifically, it is hypothesized that the "setting of ex-ante tariff elimination ratio of 95 percent on a tariff line basis" as a cause of substantial progress in Japan's agricultural liberalization, and "assigning the rights to terminate negotiations to the preceding TPP participants" as a source of an early conclusion of the negotiations over Japan's agricultural products. The validity of the former hypothesis is proved by a qualitative analysis, which combines in-depth examination of non-official documents and the confirmation of correspondence between the expected and actual number of agricultural tariff lines in Japan's commitments. The latter hypothesis is supported by a quantitative analysis employing an ordered-probit regression model, which implies that Japan's meaningful concessions in agricultural products are limited to the preceding TPP participants who have the rights to terminate negotiations. This article contributes to the literature by not only indicating the existence of pre-determined rules in the TPP negotiations but also investigating the implications of those rules on the negotiation results through solid qualitative and quantitative analyses.
DOI	http://doi.org/10.5874/jfsr.23.2_65